Landscape. A Way of Thinking Relations

Every time someone asks the question “what exactly is the landscape?,” a popular vision emerges, which we might call reductionist, that thrives on the contraposition with visions of the whole, either systemic or relational, however we wish to call them. The contraposition is that between those who explore the basic elements, the bricks of material by resorting to measurement and quantification tools, and those who ask, startingfrom a study of the form, “what is a pattern?” seeking the features of order, organization, and relations, and using mapping, not measurement, as a work tool. This is a contraposition that profoundly influences scientific research, and that appears destined to be dissolved, but perhaps not so soon. For now, we are still forced to debate the relational nature of the landscape, which cannot in any way be considered acquired. I will, therefore, try to outline some of the phases of the affirmation of the landscape as relational thinking, eschewing any attempt at systematization.