lecture Prof. Rainer Schmidt 07/02/2007
Green in urban spaces II
the meaning of gardens
Prof. Rainer Schmidt – 22 October, 2010
lecture Prof. Rainer Schmidt 05/03/2007
the meaning of gardens
„resource landscape“
The reasons for the shift of the scale are among other things the rapidly rising population as well as the
mechanization of all areas of life. Due to this the reckless exposure to our environment lead amongst
the cognizant far ranging threats to the basis of our existence like water, air and soil to even less
alarming destructions on hardly quantifiable resources, like the “resource landscape”.
23/10/2010
lecture Prof. Rainer Schmidt 05/03/2007
the meaning of gardens
meaning of landscape
Landscape has as a collective term for all visual aspects of our natural environment primary an
aesthetic meaning. Thus it is not as vital as drinking water or the air we breathe but it coins our
conditions for living to a degree that is far more than visual. A destruction of this basis of existence has
to show the far ranging consequences that can hardly be estimated mainly because of their
psychological structure.
23/10/2010
lecture Prof. Rainer Schmidt 05/03/2007
the meaning of gardens
meaning of gardens
Thus garden design can contribute more than just to beautify a wilted beauty with the methods of a
cosmetic surgeon. Not least in the past many meaningful works of garden design showed the whole
spectrum of human thought and feelings in an impressive way: the visual characteristic of a
“harmonically” and paradisiacally sensed nature and thus the delineation of a of a better world at the
same time. This potential of gardens as a mediator of an utopia or an alternative concept for the world
should be increasingly centered nowadays.
23/10/2010
lecture Prof. Rainer Schmidt 05/03/2007
the meaning of gardens
meaning of gardens in different epochs
The tendency, to open the garden towards the landscape attests to the will of a carefree, amicable
relation to nature on the one side, but on the other side bears the germ of an exceeding destruction of
nature through a initiating or already existing supremacy over nature.
23/10/2010
lecture Prof. Rainer Schmidt 05/03/2007
the meaning of gardens
meaning of gardens in different epochs
That something like a amicable relation to nature was never considered, is clearly reflected by the all
styles underlying ideal of beauty: nature was normally considered as beautiful, when it was refined by
man. The opinions in the different epochs merely differed on the extend of the necessary intervention,
to create a beautiful garden design out of the raw nature:
While during the period of renaissance and baroque it was indispensable that the regulating hand of
the designer appeared ubiquitously in form of cut hedge-walls, straight, linear path systems and
elaborate precious plantings, during the period of the English landscape gardens it was the task of the
designer to act in the behind, to create as aesthetically assumed garden scenery. Landscapes that
emerged following those principles should appear like they were created by nature, but they contained
a high level of design ideas like every formal garden.
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lecture Prof. Rainer Schmidt 05/03/2007
the meaning of gardens
meaning of gardens in different epochs
In Europe this can be retraced by means of the ideals of garden design from the closed introverted
garden of the medieval times to the step wise opening in renaissance and baroque through terracing
and visual comprehension of the exterior landscape into the garden, over the ideal of beauty
resembled from nature in the case of the English landscape garden, up to the transfiguration of nature
we know from a lot of attempts in the 20th century.
23/10/2010
lecture Prof. Rainer Schmidt 05/03/2007
the meaning of gardens
meaning of gardens
Gardens are paradises. Already the tale of the first beings, Adam and Eve is inseparable with the
description of garden Eden, the biblical paradise. So it is not astonishing, if gardens at all times
incorporate the thought of reobtaining a small piece of this lost paradise. That the visual characteristic
of this unifying thought had to be antithetic under the influence of the particular modern way of thinking
in the course of time is evident.
23/10/2010
lecture Prof. Rainer Schmidt 05/03/2007
the meaning of gardens
meaning of gardens
A garden would be a contemporary continuation of this tradition if it allows the contact to nature that is
highly important for the human mind on the one side and shows nature as a factor depending on
multitude of anthropogenic necessities on the other side – from the human arbitrament up to
perceptional psychology.
23/10/2010
lecture Prof. Rainer Schmidt 05/03/2007
the meaning of gardens
meaning of gardens
As the idea of a paradise incorporates the idea of a perfect, balanced relation between man and nature
and the assumptions how to imagine this perfect relation were directly coined by the particularly
predominating relation between man and nature, a change in this constellation must have a change in
the display of the projection as a consequence.
23/10/2010