Agriculture and Architecture: Taking the Country’s Side

Taking stock of the severe environmental predicament that now faces our world, this exhibition intends to ignite a reflection (both retrospective and pro-spective) on the strong link between the twin disciplines of agriculture and architecture, and on their growing divorce since the industrial revolution. It aims to learn from agricultural scientists, activists and designers who have consistently explored the hypothesis of a future of energy descent and its consequences, for the redesign and maintenance of living territories. Agroecology and permaculture have evolved useful concepts and strategies for imagining a post-industrial technology based on a radical economy of energy and material resources.

Joel Sternfeld, McLean, Virginia, December 1978

What if we consider permaculture not only as a kind of architecture? What about redefining architecture’s rationality and economy of means today? The exhibition is structured in three main areas: a central space with seven sections, a large-scale illustration and a screening area for documentary films. Taking the Country’s Side is a reflexive and didactic attempt to reconnect architecture and agriculture and to emphasize lessons that contemporary architects and urbanists might draw from this school of thought and action.

The Valley Section, Shelfmark Coll © The University of Edinburgh