architectural doctorate researcher, University of Lorraine, Nancy, France
Abstract
Due to its multidisciplinary nature, landscape criticism requires a comprehensive and objective approach. This approach leads to "metacriticism" supported by scientific criteria which give it scientific legitimacy. Determining values, classification and weighting facilitate scientific criticism. Focusing on the scientific character of landscape criticism, this article discusses the differences between landscape hermeneutics and compares art criticism with the critical interpretation of a project. It then introduces the sometimes contradictory, relative and subjective values attributed to landscape projects and highlights the relation between epistemological and ethical questions raised in landscape criticism. On this basis, the article offers solutions including the production of criteria, a prioritization of these criteria and the development of a multidisciplinary perspective in landscape criticism. These solutions lead to the introduction of a hypothesis that envisages a new scientific field encompassing landscape criticism. The author is optimistic over the advent of a type of metacriticism that is both ethical and scientifically accurate.
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