Prof. Dr.-Ing. Henning Krug

Profile

Work focus

Infrastructure planning
Urban planning
Regional planning

What makes the profession of landscape architect:

“The world is narrow, but the brain is wide. Thoughts dwell lightly together, but things collide hard in space” (Friedrich Schiller, 1759 – 1805: Wallenstein in Wallenstein’s Death II/2).

The planning and design of public spaces in cities and landscapes shows a high degree of complexity due to the multitude of human activities and demands, levels of action and actors as well as time horizons involved. Since all these aspects always come together in space, sectoral thinking must always merge into holistic thinking when designing space.

 

What I like to recommend to my students:

“The better is the enemy of the good” (Voltaire, 1694 – 1778, French philosopher of the Enlightenment and historian).
Designing involves “trial and error” i.e. creativity and constructive self-criticism. We first have to design many ideas and possible solutions in order to recognize the better ones by comparing them. Who does not make the effort, does not recognize them.

My tips for your studies:

“When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think of only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.” (Richard Buckminster Fuller, 1893 – 1985, architect, systems theorist, inventor)
For complex tasks like spatial planning, our brain offers shortcuts. Our sense of beauty is such a shortcut. If we train this sense, we can perceive beauty as an indication of a good compromise of all functions and quality goals.