"Land Art" Effect on Landscape Architecture Education

In this study, Land art movement which is against all acceptances is considered as a source of inspiration and a way of thinking in order to enrich and diversify thinking. Land art performers have adopted the whole world as exhibition areas for their art through taking it out of museums and galleries. They have created their works in nature and vast areas with the help of a sense of art which has more freedom, and they have attributed new meanings to art through exceeding all limits in applying art. Therefore, through Land art, spaces are limitless, they are everywhere and they are the earth, and the performers that consider the earth as spaces have the opportunity to use every kind of object, space and nature in order to turn their thought into reality. As a result, Land art may also be defined as drawing and sculpturing the world itself. The aim of this study is to find out how the Land art philosophy would become a source of inspiration for landscape architecture education. Land art philosophy is likely to enable students to have a deep perspective while shaping landscape, and new approaches that strengthen the ways of thinking to produce creative designs are likely to be developed. Within this context, in Environmental Design Project 1 (EDP1) course that focuses on designing field plastics (land topography), Land art movement has been introduced to the students as the starting point. They are required to create their own designing language through interpreting Land art, and their efforts have been supported by the instructor. At the end of the course, two objectives are presumed to be achieved: One of these objectives is that the students will be able to have creative solutions and the other is that they will be able to improve their ability to design the environment through combining function and aesthetics. In the final product, the students are able to shape field plastics as if an artist would shape a sculpture and design an artistic land that they have shaped both with a functional and aesthetic perspective. Landscape Architecture education should be considered as a "designing art" that is shaped through art and is able to create its own shapes and ways of thinking.