13th
Refuge and Prospect
In 1975, Jay Appleton proposed a novel theory to explain why landscape has such an aesthetic impact and has recently provided a supplementary discussion (Appleton, 1978). He argues that, due to evolutionary circumstances, human beings spontaneously experience the landscape in terms of the opportunities it offers for them to ‘see without being seen’. A deepseated behavioural mechanism has been inherited, underlying superficial tastes and preferences, that enables humans to find pleasure in distinguishing landscape features that provide points of vantage — prospect — and those that furnish security — refuge — from various hazards that threaten life, limb and comfort. In the modern world prospect, refuge and, in particular, hazard may often be symbolic rather than real. For example, features in the landscape may sometimes convey the idea of danger, without posing an actual threat to safety.
Source:
Clamp, Peter and Powell, Mary(1982) ‘Prospect-refuge theory under test’, Landscape Research, 7:3,7 — 8
DOI: 10.1080/01426398208706036
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01426398208706036
