Truths for Understanding our Surroundings.
In Lewis's "Axioms for Reading a Landscape" he writes about the cultural .
landscapes that are all around us daily that we seldom notice or recognize. He defines what most .
people think of when they hear the word "Landscape", which is usually a well-maintained lawn .
with a few trees. He explains that landscapes are much more then that and are all around us in .
apartment buildings, parks, street signs, and skyscrapers, and these landscapes reflect who we are .
as a culture. These "cultural landscapes" can be read if we just look carefully and are trained to .
see them. Lewis provides several ways that a person who is not trained to read the landscape can .
understand and appreciate them. .
The first is that if we understand our surroundings then we will understand our culture .
better. Our culture is changing so fast that the landscape must change right along with it and the .
technology that we once found useful has now become outdated. Also, landscapes within a .
particular region can very significantly, such as the China Town, North Beach or the .
Embarcadero districts of San Francisco. A trend also noticed is that our different cultures are all .
starting to blend in, even though we all have different ideas of what beauty is, we tend to adopt .
the attributes of other cultures into our own. .
Another way we can understand our landscapes is to know how the landscapes reflect our .
cultural harmony. We need to realize that all landscapes have equal importance to understanding .
our culture. Our everyday environments and common sense of life should not be discounted, but .
studied as clues to our culture. History too, holds a wealth of knowledge; if we understand our.
.
Ancestors" landscapes we will better understand our own. Major events in our history have .
changed our landscape in dramatic ways through wars, industrialization and commercialism. We .
should also be able to recognize where our technology comes from, and its history.
