The Anthropocene’s Post-Oasis. Designing Nature and Landscape in Southern California, 1945–65
Unprecedented urban sprawl, wildfires, erosion, tree die-off, and species decline are some of the sobering realities of anthropogenic planetary disruption today. Tracing the colonial history of the »oasis« as a design principle in landscape architecture, this research project investigates how horticultural and architectural modernism in twentieth-century Southern California continue to shape discourses on postwar environmental crises. Contrasting modes of thought originated in California and converged in the Anthropocene as an interplay of economic and technological forces within a new eco-romanticist human–made nature. This historical study of landscape examines how environmental transformations shaped the rationalization of climate change and natural disasters. Integrating archival research with an analysis of urban and rural development in the region, the project analyzes four typologies of Southern California’s designed landscape—residential garden, city park, urban recreational area, and ecological habitat—against the myth of California as modern architecture’s perfect oasis.
Nicole Theresa King is a transdisciplinary artist-designer and landscape historian. Her research focuses on political ecologies and the speculative design of landscapes and nature. King’s work has been supported by The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens (Wilbur R. Jacobs Fellow and Mellon Fellow 2023–24), the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellow in Landscape Architecture 2020–21), and the Austrian Federal Chancellery (START Award for Architecture and Design 2018). She held artist/architect residencies at SOMA Mexico (2019) and the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles (2016–17).
King holds an MLA in Landscape Design from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU) and an MA in Critical Studies from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, with additional studies at Cornell University, Wageningen University, and the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. She is currently completing a PhD in Visual Arts and Anthropogeny (Human Origins) at the University of California, San Diego.
with Lilli Lička and Ulrike Krippner, »Public Space and Social Ideals: Revisiting Vienna’s Donaupark«, in: Shelley Egoz, Karsten Jørgensen, and Deni Ruggeri (Eds.): Defining Landscape Democracy: A Path to Spatial Justice, 119-127, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar 2018.
with Lilli Lička and Ulrike Krippner, »[Monumental Park without Monument Preservation.] Denkmalwürdiger Park ohne Denkmalschutz«, in: Garten + Landschaft 2/2015, 26-30, München: Callwey.
»The Wilderness Downtown. The Indeterminate Nature of Johannesburg’s Mine Dumps«, in: Christiane Sörensen and Karoline Liedtke (Eds.), SPECIFICS. Discussing Landscape Architecture, 122-126; Berlin: jovis 2014.
»[Viennese Wonder. Media Sentiments and Sensations of a Horticultural Exposition.] Das Wunder von Wien. Mediale Sentimente und Sensationen einer Gartenschau«, in: Ulrike Krippner, Lilli Lička, and Martina Nußbaumer (Eds.): [Vienna International Garden Show 1964. Green Postwar Modernism.] WIG 64. Die grüne Nachkriegsmoderne, 74-81; Wien: Metroverlag 2014.
»[Floral Dreams from the Botanical Factory. The Modern Leisure Garden as Reflected in the Vienna International Garden Show 1964.] Blütenträume aus der Pflanzenfabrik. Der moderne Freizeitgarten im Spiegel der WIG 64«, in: Ulrike Krippner, Lilli Lička, and Martina Nußbaumer (Eds.): [Vienna International Garden Show 1964. Green Postwar Modernism.] WIG 64. Die grüne Nachkriegsmoderne, 97-103; Vienna: Metroverlag 2014.
Tracing the colonial history of the »oasis« as a design principle in landscape architecture, this research project investigates how horticultural and architectural modernism in twentieth-century Southern California continue to shape discourses on postwar environmental crises.