Historical and cultural narratives in landscape design : design applications for Miami Beach, Florida

Narrative landscapes are designed environments that use physical elements, spaces and stories to convey messages and make place. Through the use of narrative landscapes, designers can relate the historical and cultural significance of particular places and peoples. The designer must be concerned not only with the contents of the story, but with the role of the readers, the community and in the ideologies and worldviews these narratives imply. The issues involved with creating narrative in the landscape are in the incorporation of the stories and elements of the past and the use of symbolic and didactic media. In our multicultural and highly mediated society, landscape designs for public places should be pluralistic and multi-dimensional. A pluralistic design conveys the stories of personalities, communities, historic events, and places and is made within a community process or with community input. The multidimensional aspect of narrative designs emanates from the blending of abstracted or symbolic forms of communication and didactic forms that carry a series of messages. Narrative landscapes were examined to determine how designed elements and sequencing tell stories in the landscape. The information gathered was used to develop a potential design approach for the Indian Creek Corridor in Miami Beach, Florida.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2000

Author dc:creator

• Dzegede, Anyeley Yawa, 1976-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Dennis Frenchman.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/65721

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/65721