In landscape design, relief is one of the three basic means of constructing the space. During their studies, students learn to handle relief from various aspects – useful, aesthetic and significant. They respond to it, and face the challenges of its design and re-design along with the possibilities it offers as a means of expression.
For this reason the design of a cemetery is a most appropriate exercise. Burial mounds and the leveling of land are primal, ancient architectural gestures with which humans have inscribed themselves into the natural environment. Cemeteries are places of silence. They are places of mourning, remembrance, thought and contemplation. The works presented constitute a search for spatial situations that highlight the calm of horizontal planes as a path to tranquility. At the same time they bring the freedom implied by the open space face to face with human vulnerability, with metaphorical and actual exposure.
Studies of Horizontality and Solitude are aimed at studying the relationship between humans and the designed space. As merely parts, pieces in the process, they extend beyond the confines of specific tasks in seeking universal design approaches and spatial relations that prompt reflection and introspection. They are a search for spatial manifestations of a meaningful poetics of solitude, stemming from an undefined and incomplete quality, an openness, even the fragmentary nature of our lives, when faced with death, we are placed at odds with the world.
To these considerations we add a contribution from the New Music Studio at the Academy of Music. Professor Luka Juhart responded to the selected visual sections from the study process with the selection of a composition by Steven Loy, B-flat (2018), a work composed exclusively from the tones found in the harmonic series of the lowest string of a five-string double bass – in this case retuned to B-flat. The work comprises 47 cells, which allow the performers a certain freedom, since each performs their part independently, while listening to the others in actively evolving the piece, allowing the composition to grow into a kind of spectral organism.
Students of landscape architecture from the Biotechnical Faculty: Zala Dimc, Nina Hribar, Luka Jaušovec, Katarina Končina, Hana Konjedic, Žan Pečelin, Manca Šega, Ana Šmuc, Rok Štefi
Academy of Music students: Neža Vasle, Barbara Spital, Jaka Horvat, Miha Grmek Seražin, Vida Vatovec, Kristaps Vanags, Gašper Okorn, Matjaž Kafol, Ayano Shigematsu, Natalija Tripkovič, Zala Eva Kocijančič, Domen Kužnar, Gašper Livk, Joana Gonzales-Subira, Andraž Malgaj, Anika Kolar
Mentors: prof. dr. Ana Kučan, izr. prof. Luka Juhart, asist. Steven Loy, asist. Nejc Florjanc
MGBS Curator: Vladimir Vidmar
Production: Biotehniška fakulteta UL, Oddelek za krajinsko arhitekturo, in Akademija za glasbo UL
