The pain you feel from an amputated limb which no lon- ger exists is known as “phantom pain”. In this way, urban planning is concerned with the examination of a condition which no longer exists. What will replace urban plan- ning? A form of supervising a process. Koolhaas descri- bed that he sometimes had the feeling that this professi- on already existed and that it was called landscape or landcity. Landscape is a much better answer to this pro- cess than architecture or urban planning. Landscape links things that cannot be connected without any pro- blems, covers what is indigestible, and changes what is vulgar and consumptive into an oasis. Landscape is quick, simple, cheap, efficient, free of controversy, fexi- ble. Landscape can be on the left or the right, critical or uncritical, frivolous or serious, Disney or churchyard. Building cities – this is no longer necessary, in fact it is not even desirable and only complicates matters. Buil- ding cities has come to an end. The former third world – now a metropolitan laboratory – has solved our problem. The sidewalk, the doorstep, the land, the surface – this is the only link which connects everything together. This “meditation” as Koolhaas calls it, is not a result of envy, on the contrary. His respect and even his love of the landscape goes so far that we want to join it. By see- ing the city/urban planning/architecture partly as lands- cape, we can also claim to be innocent. Experiencing the city as a landscape is the only thing to do. It developed but was not created. It was a process, not a design. It was not stable, it just happens. The family tree of the landscape undoubtedly goes back to paradise; that of ar- chitecture goes back to the Fall. Therefore landscape architects have a direct line back to paradise – and street sweepers have the honor, again and again, to sweep and wash away sin – which is why this prize was awarded and the link is justifed. Download text as pdf