re/alignment

RE/ALIGNMENT was the inaugural journal produced by students of the landscape architecture program at the GSD, edited by Heidi Hohmann, Jean Cavanaugh, and Barry Abrams. The journal’s title and editorial stance signaling a commitment to dialogue, echoing Virginia Woolf’s assertion that “communication is health.” Its first editorial articulated a clear ambition: “re/alignment will try to shatter the enervating silence of the profession […] landscape architecture needs a crucible for developing voices, a publication that fosters written exchange between members of our field and other design professions. To this end, re/alignment hopes to advance an eclectic discussion between practitioners, academics, and students. […] we must re-examine our past and re-think our present.”

The publication’s inaugural issue opened with a satirical proposal for a “Pete Walker design-alike competition” in which participants were invited to outdo André Le Nôtre. The lack of response to this provocation arguably foreshadowed the brevity of the journal’s lifespan. Nevertheless, several of its contributions remain of lasting significance, including interviews with Garret Eckbo (conducted by Deborah Gerhard) and Dan Kiley (conducted by Jane Amidon). Also of note is Paula Meijerink speculative redesign of Franklin Park —Frederick Law Olmsted’s 19th-century park in Boston— posed as a response to the question, “What should the park of the 21st century be like?”

As with many student-led initiatives, the journal’s continuity proved vulnerable to the graduation of its editors. This structural challenge —often overlooked in the initial enthusiasm of launching such a publication— underscores the difficulty of sustaining student journals beyond their founding cohort and highlights the need for models of institutional support and continuity if such endeavors are to endure.