ABSTRACT
The connection between a system of representation and its symbolic values
—between axonometry, modernity, and the experience of space-has been
studied in architecture but not in landscape design.1 Although the origins
of this projection can be traced to Ancient China, landscape architects
practicing in the 1920s and 1930s considered axonometry as truly modern
—not only for its association with avant-garde architecture, but also for its
depicting, and to a certain extent shaping of, contemporary landscape space
[8-1]. Axonometry lent itself to explicating construction and organization as
expressions of twentieth-century design: it simultaneously promoted the
aerial view, the roof terrace, free space, and the interrelationship between
indoor and outdoor. Originally focusing on the transformation of the garden,
designers resorted to the axonometric view to illustrate non-symmetrical,
non-axial, and non-decorative compositions. In other words, axonometry
allowed them to diminish the former primacy of scenographic space and
eschew any overt references to historical forms.
