Martha Schwartz
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Martha Schwartz is a landscape architect who through her designs has almost single handedly redefined the notion of landscape design. Her projects range from private to urban scale. Schwartz background is in the fine arts as well as landscape architecture. She studied at the University of Michigan and at the Harvard Graduate School of Design consecutively. Schwartz was asked to become a professor of landscape architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1992, since she has served as a critic visiting many universities. Schwartz currently has firms in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has recently established a second firm in London. She was married to landscape architect Peter Walker, with whom she has two sons, Jake and Josie. She latter remarried an architect from London, Markus Jatsch, who is the father of her 5-year-old daughter Hannah.
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[edit] Influences
Martha Schwartz contributes her inspiration to many different areas of interest. She has a desire to use the landscape to speak about being human and to communicate these ideas. Schwartz is most interested by the landscape we make and occupy. The use of her materials originated from an interest in pop art. The use of everyday objects as a way to reject the mainstream and embraced art intrigued her. Likewise, art of earthworks interested her in the fact that they were conceptual as well as site specific. Other elements that appear in her designs can be explained through life experience. She has always loved bright colors, since she was just a little girl. This may have stemmed from the fact that her grandmother placed plaster ducks and fake flowers in her yard year round, providing for vivid color in the midst of a dreary winter. Schwartz also takes inspiration of the geometry of her designs from the cemetery located directly outside her residence, in which fake flowers constantly adorn the landscape.
[edit] Major Designs
The list of Martha Schwartz influential designs are quite extensive because they have all attracted debate and recognition. Schwartz first design was that of the Bagel Garden. This design resembled a parterre embroiderie in which purple gravel strips set off shellacked bagels. This design drew Schwartz a great deal of attention, landing her Bagel Garden on the front page of Landscape Architecture Magazine. A list of Schwartz’s subsequent works include: Stella’s Garden, Necco Garden, Whitehead Institute Splice Garden, King County Jailhouse Garden, Center for Innovative Technology, Rio Shopping Center, International Swimming Hall of Fame, Limited Parterre with Skywriter, Turf Parterre Garden, Hanging Texas Bluebonnet Field, Becton Dickinson Immunocytometry Division, New England Holocaust Memorial Competition, Kunsthal Museumpark Competition, Biosphere Competition, Los Angeles Center, Columbia Center, Moscone Center Competition, Fukuoka International Housing, Dickenson Residence, The Citadel, Snoopy’s Garden, HUD Plaza Improvements, Davis Residence, Jacob Javits Plaza, World Cup 1994, The Littman Wedding, Federal Courthouse Plaza, Baltimore Inner Harbor Competition, Landschaftspark Munchen-Riem, Miami International Airport Sound Wall and many others. In 2005, away from prestigious city plazas and urban parks, Schwartz created a new public landscape in a deprived former coal-mining village in Castleford in Yorkshire, England - part of a program of innovative urban revitalization known as The Castleford Project [1].
[edit] Influential People
Martha Schwartz gives credit to many individuals for inspiration of her design talents. She states that perhaps her most important inspiration has been from Isamu Noguchi. Schwartz was greatly influenced by his horizontal sculptures of earth forming, and stage sets for Martha Graham. She feels that Noguchi transcended the boundaries of art, design, and landscape in order to create magical and surreal places. Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol also made Schwartz list of influences. This is contributed to the fact that she thinks of herself as living one part in the art world and one part in the world of landscape. While this is so, she doesn’t feel entirely welcome in either.
[edit] Social Movements
Schwartz has not so much been a part of a social movement as she has inspired one. Schwartz looks at the landscape as a means of communication in which one needs to consider the history, and influence of the site. Schwartz designs with idea that it is better to offend someone than to come off as mediocre, it is better to create something that inspires for a short time and is cared for than a long term design that is not taken care of. Her pallet is the use of extreme colors, plays of scale, and glorification of everyday materials. This abstract approach at art causes a great deal of controversy as to what landscape really is. Ask Schwartz and she would reply that it is everything outside of your front door. She feels that America is ugly and more consideration needs to go to the construction of space.
[edit] Martha Schwartz: A significant figure
Martha Schwartz is a designer that has revolutionized the concept of what landscape architecture is. She has in every attempt blurred the lines between art and architecture. Schwartz is a provocative artist that employs extreme colors, unique materials, and outrageous concepts to bring humor to each of her designs. These designs span the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, Sweden, Britain, Europe, Asia and elsewhere. Schwartz is considered one of the world’s most preeminent landscape architects and artists, and has been listed as one of the world's top 100 designers in the world by Metropolitan Home magazine based on her revolutionary design of public spaces. Martha Schwartz is, and continues to be, a very influential woman in both the field of design and art. Her talents may have a genetic component. Her maternal uncle, Eugene Wasserman, was the winner of the 1940 Paris Prize in Architecture.
[edit] Resources
Abbott, Jez. Watch This CABE Space. Horticulture Week. Teddington: Feb 2004. pg. 22-25.
Bernstein, Fred. Design: Anything but Square. The Independent. London (UK): Sep 3, 2000. pg. 32.33.3
- --. Making Landscapes Pop. New York Times. New York.: Dec 21, 2000.pg. F. 1.
Buttery, Helen. Bumper Crop of Creativity: Noteworthy: Artists’ Garden 2000. National Post. Jul 8, 2000.
Diesenhouse, Susan. Landscapes of the Mind Troght-Provocking Designs Have Built Martha Schwartz’s Reputation
- Overseas. But She’s Virtually Unknown in Her Own Backyard. Boston Globe. Boston, Mass.: June 26, 2004. Pg. : D. 13.
Eisen, David. Architecture: Design Dig- Creative Minds Explore Possibilities of Central Artery Greenspace.
- Boston Herald. Boston, Mass.: Jul 1, 2001. pg. 057.
Gragg, Randy. Creating an Urban Park for a City of Naturalists “Pop Landscape Artist” Martha Schwartz is bound to : Tweak Portlanders’ Biases. The Oregonian. Portland, Or.: Jun 4 2000. pg. F. 04
- --. Bold Architectural Statements In Exhibit Speak of The Possible. The Oregonian. Portland, Or.: Oct 3,
- 1991. pg. C. 08
Martha Schwartz Partners. 1999-2004. Martha Schwartz, Inc. 20 October, 2005. Online.
Meyer, Elizabeth K., Heidi Landecker. 1997. Martha Schwartz: Transfiguration of the Commonplace.
- Spacemaker Press.
Nye, Valerie. The Vanguard Landscapes and Gardens of Martha Schwartz. Library Journal. New York: Sep 1, 2004.
- Vol. 129, Iss. 14: Pg. 147.
Richardson, Tim. Black Magic Designer Martha Schwartz’s Belief that ‘a landscape can be about anything’ is
- reflected in Her Colourful and Unconventional Work. The Daily Telegraph. London (UK): Apr 3, 2004. pg. 01.
- [<http://www.wwnorton.com/thamesandhudson/new/spring04/551131.htm>]
Solomaon, Deborah. 2004. Questions For Martha Schwartz: Can America Go Public?. ; New York Times Magazine.
- May 16, 2004; National Newspapers (27) pg. 19.
Swift, Katherine. Transcend the Ordinary. The Times. London (UK): Aug 28, 2004. pg. 33.
- The Vangaurd Landscapes and Designs of Martha Schwartz. 2004. Thames and Hudson. 20 October, 2005.
See also:*Landscape Architecture
