In addition, landscape architecture is involved in making urban-industrial spaces readable as landscapes, i. e. as large-scale works of nature and culture. Thus in the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, typical elements of idyllic cultural landscapes and gardens were incorporated within the heavy – industry context. A kind of cottage garden with boxwood (Buxus semper – virens) and hydrangeas was laid out in a former ore bunker and water lilies were planted in the reservoirs (cf. Korner 2003, p 98f).
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Fig. 6. Cottage garden in a former ore bunker |
As well, groves and allees were made use of as a well-known medium for ordering the landscape (cf. Rebele and Dettmar 1996, p 129). For this reason, Peter Latz placed columnar black-locust trees that could be seen from a great distance on a former waste dump in the Landschaftspark Du – isburg-Nord (for further formal design concepts, see Grosse-Bachle 2005; Henne 2005).
All in all one can say that, through a new type of nature that includes the processes of Verwilderung and whose development is ultimately made possible through the decline of former heavy industry, a new form of landscape has arisen. This has been integrated, by landscape architecture, into recognized landscape design topoi. In this way, the development of spontaneous nature and the preservation of historic structure are not seen as contradictory. It is not a conservational idea of historic preservation and certainly not a reconstructive one that is pursued. Rather the preservation of history, such as historic traces of use, is bound up into a landscape architectural design approach that aims to organize the everyday usability of open space and express an authentic, aesthetic whole. Ultimately the Lan – desverschonung ideal of the union of beauty and function will once again be aspired to.
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Fig. 7. Scarred bunkers in the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord |
There is a thread relating to historic preservation that joins nature conservation in the broad sense, forest aesthetics, and landscape architecture – it is the idea of a historically unique character. All three fit into the traditions of Heimatschutz and Landesverschonung. It has been shown however, that process conservation distances nature conservation from its own historic preservation heritage, although the category of unique character is still somewhat recognized and therefore so is the cultural-historical dimension. Based on this understanding of character in urban nature conservation then, nature is differentiated into different types and thereby an open connection to landscape architecture and to historic preservation is fashioned. The idea of combining nature conservation with historic preservation is, therefore, not new.
In the following, it will furthermore be demonstrated that an approach exists as well in historic preservation theory that understands a freely developing nature as a central component of modern historic preservation values. This is also not new (cf. Morsch 1998). How process conservation
that is culturally aware and historic preservation that is process-oriented can complement each other will also be discussed.
