The Evolution Of Western Landscape Planning Theories In The Perspective Of The History Of Science Since 17th Century

Landscape planning had both aesthetics and scientific aspects in its origin and content.Science and aesthetics were once closely integrated and indivisible in history while gradually departed with the rise of modern science since the 17^th century.As a result,the perspective of aesthetics in studying the history of landscape architecture has confronted a dilemma.Under this background,this dissertation tries to study the evoluting process of landscape planning in the perspective of the history science.The study introduced the theory proposed by Thomas Kuhn of―scientific paradigm‖which means some fundamental assumptions,theories and methods universally accepted by the scientific community in a certain period of time.The history of science is considered to assume abrupt change periodically.―Paradigm shift‖happens occasionally and the history of science enters into a period called―scientific revolution‖.Following a―scientific revolution‖,there will be a period called―normal science‖when the paradigm remains relatively stable.There had been three major scientific revolutions in history,which constitudes the basis for the time division of the history of science and the main framework of this dissertation.The concept of paradigm has been extended to apply to many specific disciplines.Some studies in the field of landscape architecture have also introduced the concept of paradigm.Accordingly,this dissertation tries to apply paradigm theory to the study of the history of landscape planning.Landscape planning can also be considered to have paradigms including two aspects:1)ontology:the understanding of the essence of landscape,it character,structure and operating mechanism;2)epistemology and methodology:the basic method of landscape study and planning.Compared with the traditional perspective,the perspective of the history of science could more profoundly explore the―fundamental questions‖,grasp the pattern of the evolution process,provide a criterion for the evaluation of landscape planning theories,and promote the communication with different disciplines.According to the time division of the history of science,the dissertation teased out major scientific events,paradigm and influences in every period,studied their impacts on contemporaneous landscape planning thoughts,established connections between landscape planning theories and the scientific paradigm,and summarized the paradigm of landscape planning,including:1)the first scientific revolution(17-18^th century)formed the mechanistic paradigm,while the high baroque gardens,cities and landscape planning and English landscape garden and countryside planning embodied the paradigm of the integration of mechanistic view and aesthetics,and science had become a tool of understanding and reforming nature;2)the second scientific revolution(19^th to the first half of the 20^th century)formed the paradigm featuring the contradictory of organic and mechanistic view,while the theories and practice such as the renovation of Paris,parks system,garden city and regional planning began to view the landscape and cities as a organic system,and positivist method was preliminarily applied;3)the third scientific revolution(mid 20^th century to the present)has seen the rise of the complexity paradigm,while the thoughts of Jacobs’and Alexander’s,the shift in the development of postmodernism,ecological planning,systematical planning and landscape urbanism have formed the paradigm based on the complex adaptive system,emphasizing dynamics,connectivity,the integration of top-down and bottom-up methods,subjectivity and objectivity.Major conclusions of the dissertation include:most of the important landscape planning theories have been influenced by scientific ideologies of the time,the paradigms of landscape planning are consistent with scientific paradigms,the development of landscape planning is a bottom-up process of evolution,etc.