Yet this triumphalist narrative is deeply flawed, in both its history and its conclusion.
First of all, this same tale has been told again and again over the past century or more, as each
new generation’s directors and designers have proclaimed themselves more enlightened than
their noble but misguided predecessors. In a constant refrain, zoo planners have pointed out
the inadequacy and artificiality of earlier models, arguing instead for the more “natural” principles
of their plans. But if we reexamine the history of American zoos and the assumptions
and meanings that have informed their changing landscapes, we find, contrary to the proclamations
of the “new zoo” boosters, that many zoological parks of the past century and a half
did indeed present an “environmental” experience of wildlife and wilderness. Furthermore,
beyond its narrative faults, this Whiggish history has also obscured serious problems within
the environmentalist rhetoric that dominates contemporary zoo design and, indeed, much of
contemporary landscape architecture in general. By making unnecessarily grand claims for
today’s “biocentric” designs, landscape architects and their supporters risk losing a critical
consciousness that is essential to their art. Zoo designs, like all works of landscape architecture,
are clearly cultural constructions, yet the rhetoric of environmentalism may encourage the
dangerous view that immersion exhibits actually are nature. With similar claims of a mimetic
relationship between landscape architecture and nature appearing throughout the profession
in recent years, this case study of zoo exhibits may suggest important reconsiderations of the
prevailing environmentalist discourse. While the best work of today’s zoo designers is impressive,
exciting, and invaluable to our appreciation of wildlife, their confident environmentalism
is challenged when viewed in the historical context of the planning and the perception
of zoos’ “natural” landscapes. Such a challenge may, in turn, prompt a more reflective and
historically informed practice of landscape architecture.3
The history of zoo design in the United States unfolds over several generations, stretching
back some one hundred and forty years. Public zoological gardens had first emerged
during the early nineteenth century in London, Paris, Berlin, and other European capitals.