Landscape Architecture Australia — February 2018

AFTER

LANDSCAPE

Reflecting on the life and legacy of landscape

architecture academic Marieluise Jonas – an

educator who inspired many with her passion

for and understanding of Asian urbanism.

—

Tex t Jillian Walliss and Heike Rahmann

Illustrations Tom Harper and Brock Hogan (Placemark)

F

or some, life takes a defined course
from school to university and then
work, often in the same city and
usually in the same country. This did not
apply to Marieluise Jonas. Her desire to
experience the new and unknown led her
from her native Germany to the United
States, Japan and finally to Australia, where
she spent the last eight years of her life. But
it is her work in Japa n t hat w ill be her g reat-
est legacy to landscape architecture and the
design community. Her decade-long
exploration of the intricacies of Japanese
urbanism and her more recent contribution
to tsunami-affected coastal villages offer
students, practitioners and communities
valuable knowledge and lessons.

Marieluise’s father, who travelled exten-
sively for work, encouraged her interest in
Japan from an early age. Her first encounter
with a foreign country was in the USA,

1990

Student exchange

to Arkansas, USA

2001

Awarded

scholarship

funded by German

government

2001

Worked as a landscape

architecture intern

Kisho Kurokawa Architect and

Associates, Tokyo, Japan

1997

Studied

landscape

architecture

Höxter, Germany

2005

Awarded

HDR scholarship

funded by

DAAD and MEXT

1995

Began two-year landscape

contractor apprenticeship

Kiel, Germany

2002

Worked as a landscape architect

Hanover, Germany

2005

Commenced PhD research

Keikan Lab,

University of Tokyo

2001

Commenced study of aikido

a modern martial art

LANDSCAPE FOUNDATIONS HYBRID LANDSCAPES

EXPANDED FIELDS

where as a highschool exchange student in

Arkansas she happened to shake the hand

of t hen gover nor Bill Clinton. In 1995, a f ter

finishing highschool and a short explora-

tion studying sociology at the University

of Kiel in Germany, she commenced a

two-year apprenticeship as a landscape

contractor. This training laid the founda-

tion of her career in landscape architecture.

It was at this time that Marieluise and her

partner, Heike Rahmann, first met. In 1997

Marieluise began her landscape architec-

ture degree and soon, being bored by the

focus on Eurocentric landscape architec-

ture, she looked to expand her cultural

understandings of landscape and design

through an internship abroad.

In 2001 Marieluise was awarded a govern-

ment-funded scholarship aimed at

professional and personal development

overseas. With Japan a major economic

partner, the German government was

particularly supportive of young Germans

working in Japan, offering specialized

training in cross-cultural communication

and diplomacy. Working for six months in

the office of Tokyo-based architect Kisho

Kurokawa, a renowned modernist architect

who co-founded the Metabolism Movement

in the 1960s, she quickly discovered that

landscape architecture as presented in

Germany did not exist in Japan. Instead,

Tokyo exposed her to the cultural and

spatial complexity of one of the world’s most

intriguing megacities. The density and lack

of open space raised an appreciation for the

small and hidden moments in the city that

are not easily accessible to the short-term

visitor. This attitude toward unpretentious

qualities paired with Marieluise’s curiosity

to unpack the underlying social conditions

of spatial design and inhabitation formed a

constant presence in her academic work.