Emily Gordon

I initially found my way to landscape architecture through Art History. At the time, I lived in the Hudson Valley amongst hills and rivers that were steeped with deep associations to American foundational myths that link so much of our culture, economies, and politics to the very land itself. Fascinated by the ways in which humans have transformed, curated, consumed, and projected meaning onto the landscape, I embarked on becoming a practicing landscape architect—a path that led me into these very acts of transformation, as I’ve worked to reshape waterfronts, parks, campuses and gardens during my ten years in professional practice. This journey has continued to reveal the many complex and often competing claims on landscape, made by the multitude of systems that run through it, act upon it, and are shaped by it. Bringing these aspects of my past together through teaching in the Histories and Theories sequence, I’ve both celebrated the chance to revisit much of what originally drew me into the field, while building upon insights and questions my experience in practice has urged me to investigate further.