Contemplating and gathering
Lookout
national park mountain road urban garden or park azotea city edge
A platform, tower or high point made for looking at the landscape. It can be a pavilion in a garden, a terrace on a roof or an edge with a railing at the brink of a hill.
What it solves
It marks the place from which to look and makes safe an edge that would otherwise be dangerous. It invites people to stop, breathe and share the view with others, which turns the landscape into a common good.
Today
Place it where the view opens up without cutting down what frames it, with a sturdy railing, some shade and a place to sit. Reach it by an accessible path so the view is not only for those who can climb steps.
Common mistake
Leaving it in full sun and without a railing, or filling it with signs and structures that block the view people came for.
Tomorrow
With light timber or steel structures made in a workshop, a lookout can be assembled without heavy machinery and removed without leaving a trace. Without intrusive lights, it also serves for stargazing and listening to the forest at night.
Where it comes from
- 1Chinese pavilion China, Sui and Tang dynasties
Officials and scholars brought to their gardens the ting, an open pavilion for sitting to contemplate the landscape and become part of it. - 2Chinese and Japanese gardens China and Japan, 17th century
The Yuanye treatise calls jiejing the art of borrowing the distant landscape, an idea known in Japan as shakkei. - 3Italian Renaissance Rome, late 15th century
A small pavilion on the Vatican hill was named Belvedere, which means beautiful view. From there lookouts became fashionable in the 16th century. - 4Volcanic national parks Costa Rica, 21st century
In Irazú Volcano National Park, the trail to the crater lookout has entrance ramps for everyone.
Masters
- César Manrique Mirador del Río, Lanzarote, Spain, 1973
He hid the lookout inside the lava cliff and opened it to the sea with two large windows. He teaches that a lookout can offer the view without imposing itself on the landscape people come to see.
Appears in the routes
See also
Also in Contemplating and gathering
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.