THE ROLE OF OPEN SPACES IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF URBAN LANDSCAPE 2 THE ROLE OF OPEN SPACES IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF URBAN LANDSCAPE Edited by ANNA LAMBERTINI with Foreword by RAFFAELE MILANI and Conclusions by RITA COLANTONIO VENTURELLI The book was published with the support of: Italian Institute of Culture of Berlin MEDDE, French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy Ser.In.Ar. Forlì-Cesena Soc.Cons.p.A Servizi Integrati Facility srl Editorial Assistant Anna Lambertini Graphic Design Elena Alberti Editrice Compositori is a trade mark of Compositori Comunicazione © 2013 Compositori Comunicazione srl Via Stalingrado 97/2 – 40128 Bologna tel. 051 3540111 – fax 051 327877 [email protected] www.editricecompositori.it ISBN 978-88-7794-831-1 contents Login # Urban Landscape, Raffaele Milani ............................................................................................................ 9 # Urban/Post-Urban/Not Urban: Proximate! Reinventing Border Landscapes, Anna Lambertini .........12 # Urban Fragmentation and Open Spaces in Cities Undergoing Transformation. Commentary on the Sidelines of a Conference, Bas Pedroli ..........................................................................................18 # The Social Dimension of Projects Directed Toward the Recomposition of the Urban Landscape: European Vision and Local Identity. Commentary on the Sidelines of a Conference, Flavio Venturelli ... 21 1. Nature, Open Spaces and Landscapes 1.1. The Value of Ecosystem Services in Urban Landscapes, Beate Jessel, Alice Kube ...................................29 1.2. The Ecological Role of Parks in Europe, Hansjörg Kuster ........................................................................41 1.3. Dans les «espaces ouverts» urbains, des vestiges du bocage paysan. Résilience ou trompe-l’œil? Monique Toublanc, avec la collaboration de Pauline Frileux .......................................................................51 2. Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture 2.1. Will the New Common Agricultural Policy Improve the Management of Rural and Peri-urban Settings and Landscaping?, Andrea Galli, Hubert Gulinck, Ernesto Marcheggiani ..................................71 2.2. Economy of Rural Spaces. Two Results of our Work with Students, Kerstin Gothe ..............................78 2.3. L’agriurbanité: trois modèles, de la ville agricole à la ville jardin, Pierre Donadieu ...............................84 3. Public Spaces, Social Dynamic and Cities in Evolution 3.1. Urban Open Spaces. Tradition and Modernity, Josefina Gómez-Mendoza ..........................................103 3.2. Hidden Landscape. Rethinking the Contemporary City, Henrique Pessoa Pereira Alves .....................117 3.3. The Geography of Peri-urban Landscapes in Europe, Marc Antrop .....................................................126 3.4. Les rapports sociaux à la nature et leurs évolutions, Yves Luginbühl ...................................................142 3.5 Lifestyle and Ethnic Economies. The Contribution of Migrants in the Transformation of Urban Spaces in Berlin, Edith Pichler ................................................................................................................151 3.6. Espaces publics périphériques et paysages de voisinage dans le Bronx (New York) et à L’Ile Saint Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis - Paris), Emeline Bailly ................................................................165 4. Landscape as a Project 4.1. Aéroport Notre Dame des Landes, Nantes. Problématique de l’aménagement paysager lié au bocage Bernard Lassus......................................................................................................................185 4.2. Landscape, Handle with Care, Franco Zagari .......................................................................................192 4.3. “Moving” Urban Landscapes, Lorenzo Vallerini ...................................................................................196 4.4. The Concept of Urban Lisière and its Application on Reunion Island, Sophie Bonin ...........................211 4.5. New Landscape Opportunities in Urban Design, Giovanni Sala, Andreas Kipar .................................227 4.6 Intermediate Scales for Italian Landscape. Projects in the Po Valley, Annalisa Metta ........................235 Logout # The Urban Landscape in the Digital Era,Rita Colantonio Venturelli ....................................................249 login 7 login 9 Urban Landscape Raffaele Milani* The present book is the product of lengthy discussions held initially in Berlin in March of 2013 and continued into March of 2014. It was no coincidence that Berlin was chosen as the site of the conference and the ideal location for an exchange of views on the city of today and the city of tomorrow. All the viewpoints expressed, which are interdisci- plinary in nature, flow from a single realization, namely, that the city is a landscape. It is increasingly so now that it has come to penetrate, through countless rivulets, into the surrounding countryside, swallowing up ever larger tracts of farmlands and wood- lands. But what sort of landscape are we talking about? We can leave the city and come into contact with the nature that surrounds it; however, we can also return to the city in order to indulge, from within, in the contemplation of its architecture, in its various forms and styles. In today’s extensive territorial habitat, the valorization of green areas, creative gardens, and shared gardens promotes an urban development that contrasts with cold planning policy, even as the latter is attempting to reinvent itself by proposing alternative energy sources, such as green or smart energy, to disguise the economic and political greed of large corporations. At the same time, however, we need to be wary of typically ideological actions on the part of some social groups. (Those who deface the walls of historic buildings while they support organic food stores engage in unaccepta- ble contradictions). We often think of urban design as a philosophy, but this type of reflection is not nec- essarily the exclusive domain of specialists. There is also a popular vision of what the nature of developed land is and what it should or could be. What we wish to underscore here is the interrogating gaze of citizens in the face of the present forms of the grow- ing city where the senses are assaulted by empty spaces, unfinished projects, stylistic and environmental incongruities, abandoned, bare, or marginal zones, as well as ware- houses, road networks, mines, and landfills are seen of as opportunities for people to reinvent their urban environment. In their minds, citizens pursue the pleasurable, the tasteful, and the beautiful which, from place to place, can produce architecture with- out architects, and without involving great technical or structural revolutions. Such a * Translated by Corrado Federici. 10 raffaele milani perspective is useful for all sorts of arguments, especially today if we consider the new forms of the city that has become a cosmopolis, beyond any ideal, symbolic or meta- phorical meaning. Irrespective of announced intentions, today’s improvised interventions on the part of some social groups appear as a useful showcase of creativity. Not every city is like Copenhagen or Stockholm. Except for a few important examples, we are discussing the typical city. This is not because people wish to become the next Tadao Ando, Frank Gehry, Kengo Kuma, Jean Nouvel, Richard Meyer, Renzo Piano, Dominique Perrault, or Daniel Libeskind, to name only a few of the more famous architects. Rather, it is because they would like to be liberated from the steady diet of forms imposed on them by an “architectural genius.” If anything, people fell closer to Emilio Ambaz and James Wines. The cityscape, therefore, refers to the transformation of the land, but also to the great gamble of the times, the challenge of giving a human face to the cementification craze. Vertical gardens and green balconies appear on sections of our high-rise apart- ments; abandoned industrial areas are being transformed and converted for new use social uses; thin strips of green appear, like avenues of freedom, amid the solid mass of buildings opening up onto open spaces, between impromptu gardens, then fields, and woodlands. Architects design these kinds of structures, but they are not the only ones to do so since many groups of citizens also create them. Every architectural form, even if improvised, is increasingly landscape and, as such, is conducive to a productive, educational, and creative rapport between the environment and the spirit of the shared city. In the social context, our gaze and our body in motion activate waves of emotions, images, intentions, and forms of industriousness, both within and without, between what is outside and far from us and what is inside and close to us. Today especially, as noted, the appropriate correlation between our experience of the natural environment and our experience of urban landscape in a reciprocal interchange is clear. As humankind inhabits the earth, so too do we inhabit the city. Urban conglom- erates large and small may have been the realization of the utopia of tradition or of mo- dernity, but the city, and even more so the modern megalopolis, with its diversification of zones, namely, its public squares, neighborhoods, buildings, monuments, and open spaces, can inspire many different and positive actions. To inhabit a city aesthetically means to appreciate