Session Abstract
In this lecture, Walter Hood will discuss his forthcoming book, Hybrid Landscapes. Walter shares how practical and speculative considerations in landscape design and art can coexist, and how, ultimately, they produce hybrid works. Hybridity is practical in its emergence from a professional context. It’s speculative in its ability to integrate the contemplative, personal, and idiosyncratic. It’s also demonstrative of the incongruences, revelations, and conflicts. In attempting to understand how existing social and cultural patterns manifest as forms and spaces, the hybrid emerges as the paradigm by which landscapes may be recognized as multiplicities, dissimilar in physicality and aesthetic.
Speaker Bio
Walter J. Hood, a multidisciplinary designer from Charlotte, NC, is globally recognized for his contributions in art, landscape architecture, urbanism, and research. Founding Hood Design Studio in Oakland, CA in 1992, he now leads as its creative director. His passion for landscape and urbanism emerges from its broad, democratic scope, allowing experiences beyond architectural constraints. Infusing African American cultural arts into his philosophy, he established a unique voice, reshaping spaces to reflect contemporary needs without erasing their history. A professor at UC Berkeley and former Harvard educator, Walter penned “Black Landscapes Matter” and has received accolades like the 2019 MacArthur Fellowship and the 2021 Architectural League’s President’s Medal award.