Some major points from Beth Meyer in regards to the relationship of geology and social sciences -- Note that part of Muskau is in a mining site. The pleasure park and the industry exist together. It wasn't unusual in the 1700s for scholars to write about the picturesque in terms of disturbed sites. Extraction industries required something to extract, a resource. Many picturesque landscapes occurred on glaciated topography, north of where the glaciers stopped. Muskau is on the edge of a terminal moraine, the southern extent. Once scientists began to understand different landforms produced by glaciers, people in industry knew where to site quarries and mines. This is a major intersection of art, geology, architecture, and economy. Landscape architecture as part of something site-specific and geological.

Advice from Beth -- Do a concept test. Trust your instincts even before you have all of the information, because no practice consists of weeks of research before the design proposal. Speculate and synthesize. 

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A major takeaway from explorations today within social histories -- there is a distinct lack of one privileged viewpoint in Puckler's design at Muskau. From the top of Schinkel's ramp at the Schloss, there are a number of fingers of space that reach back into the pine forest. They all have their own vanishing points. Some disappear behind smaller groves of trees dropped like more expensive curtains across portions of the landscape, interrupting a specific view and emphasizing another. Conversely, the Schloss is not always the focal point of views in the opposite direction. This could be interpreted as a reflection of Enlightenment-era philosophical ideas that suggested that people generally should be treated more equally. It was a revolution which formed much of the basis of how we think of human rights today.