A reflection from Richard Weller

It was 1993 and I was deep in a dark Berlin winter when I heard that Craig Burton had started a new landscape program in Australia and a position was open. The opportunity of working with Craig to build a new program from the ground up was exciting. I also wanted out of Germany. I’d never been to Perth, and upon arrival was overwhelmed by the crystalline quality of the light, the porosity of space, the remnant xanthorrhoeas, and the unpretentious character of the locals.

Coming from the center of the world to its furthest edge, I was not expecting the school to be as sophisticated as it evidently was. Heavily influenced by his experiences at the AA, Geoffrey London (Dean at the time) had assembled a great team of architects, all of whom nurtured and were committed to design, to history and theory, and to the art and craft of making things. Also appealing was the fact that the school of architecture and now landscape architecture was triangulated with a cutting-edge fine arts department.

Most importantly, the school had a strong studio culture (thank you Charlie Mann) with a fully kitted workshop, and a dedicated gallery on the ground floor. While other landscape programs around the nation (apart from RMIT with whom we soon developed good relations) languished in their various forms of inertia, we sensed a real opportunity to build a great DESIGN program – one deeply immersed in the local, yet also fully cognizant of and competitive with the global. With all of Western Australia at our doorstep we also had incredible material to work with.

And, more than a few of the students were great! Particularly in the early days I had students from the bush and from the suburbs who, despite (or perhaps because of) knowing absolutely nothing about design culture, would go on to produce exquisite work. Remember too that in the mid-’90s everything was still analogue, not digital so for the first few years I taught students the painstaking craft of drawing with Rotring pens on tracing paper. Although this became redundant soon enough, for a few lovely years there was no photoshop with which to bullshit your way through. Students worked hard and, it must be said, partied even harder.

I used to particularly love the final buildup to folio submission. This was when, in a good way, the school took on the character of an overcrowded asylum on speed. Then, after folios were submitted came the obligatory session at Steve’s where an admixture of joy and delirium brought everyone together.

As well as teaching studios in 1994 I invented a subject titled “The Culture of Nature”. It concerned everything I felt I’d missed out on in my own education. In this subject I tried to connect a sweeping history of ideas from across the arts and sciences back to design. Although way too big for its boots, it eventually matured into something unique that I am proud of. That said, I must also take this opportunity to apologize to the first few years of guinea pigs to whom I taught it, ranting at them on topics I could barely myself grasp (quantum physics anyone?).

I enjoyed great freedom and support at UWA and I am profoundly grateful to the various Deans over the years who protected us from a burgeoning academic culture of stingy and pedantic administration. I am grateful to the school and to the students for always supporting me in my effort to combine teaching and practice and put it forward as a legitimate form of research. In short, I loved my time at UWA.

Richard Weller
Perth, 2023

Richard Weller is professor and former chair of landscape architecture and urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania, where he (together with Fritz Steiner) established the Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology. He is co-founder (with Tatum Hands) and former creative director of LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture, founding director (with Vladimir Sitta) of Australian design firm Room 4.1.3., and holds adjunct professorships at the University of Western Australia and the University of New South Wales. In 2012 he received an Australian national teaching award for a sustained to commitment to design education, and in 2017 and 2018 he was listed by Design Intelligence as one of the top 25 most respected design educators in America. His work has been frequently awarded in international design competitions and exhibited internationally, including at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Venice and Rotterdam Biennales, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the MAXXI Gallery in Rome, the Canadian Design Museum in Toronto, and the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. His publications include Room 4.1.3: Innovations in Landscape Architecture (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), Boomtown 2050: Scenarios for a Rapidly Growing City (University of Western Australia Press, 2009), Made in Australia: The Future of Australian Cities (UWAP, 2013), Transects (ORO Editions, 2014), Design with Nature Now (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2019), Beautiful China: Reflections on Landscape Architecture in Contemporary China (ORO Editions, 2020), The Landscape Project (AR+D Publishing, 2022), and An Art of Instrumentality (ORO Editions, 2023). ‘The Atlas for the End of the World,’ Weller’s recent research work on biodiversity and cities, has been published in National Geographic and Scientific American, while his related research and design project to establish a ‘World Park’ is currently being considered for implementation by UNESCO. His forthcoming publication To the Ends of the Earth: A Grand Tour for the 21st century will be published by Birkhauser in Spring 2024.