Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Elena Micoulina
evolution oflandscape in the course of the remains of the gardens of the coun-
history. try residencesofMarkovo and Kryvitsy.
Bach historic landscape, like any Ry analysing the above mentioned
other historical monument, embodies four groups -each of which is charac-
in a special way and bya special proc- terized by a given type of general aspect
ess a givenstage in the development of -and viewing them in the light of the
society. Under the heading of "historic development ofhuman use of the envi-
landscape" we may in fact include not ronment, it has been possible to work
only historic gardens but a great many out a classification for aIl gardens of
other historical monuments or monu- original design. This is intended to
ments of the past. embrace gardens of aIl types,whatever
The gardenslaid out in the past have their natural surroundings, climatic
always had a given spatial relationship conditions and related urban layout.
to the surrounding landscape. their size and function or their period.
This could be of two sorts: For purposes of logical classifica-
a. The garden was a focal point, an tion one single criterion was adopted,
embodiment of the essence of the namely, relation to the environment.
surrounding landscape and its struc- Tomeet this requirement, itwas neces-
tural centre, deriving its characteris- sary to leave aside any attempt to view
tic appearancefrom the peculiarities the development of garden design as a
of its surroundings; reflection of the development of archi-
b. The gardenwas an element designed tecture. and any analysis of form and
to contrast with its surroundings, in aspe~t in architecture and garden de-
which case its appearancewas a re- sign according to period (Renaissance.
flection oflandscape or architectural baroque, classical, etc.).
features which had little in common 4. Influence of the historical herit-
with these. age on the formation of modern
Where a park or garden is laid out attitudes.
round a farmstead, the influence of the Roth in the academic and the practi-
surrounding fields remains clearly vis- cal sense,the historical heritage in the
ible. With rare exceptions, thisis troe of field of garden design is being treated in
almost all Russian gardens, irrespecti- an essentially new way. Research and
vely of the group they may belong to. planning are for the most part con-
All of them -kolomenskoye, cemed with the protection and restora-
Lefortovo, Archangelskoye andthe rest tion of existing historic gardens.
-were initially laid out in the light of The listing and classification ofhis-
their visual relationship with their sur- .
toric gardensare done in different ways
roundings. according to country ; the cri teria for the
Russian gardenslaid out in the vicin- assessmentof their importance and state
ity of towns were regarded as focal of repair, as weIl as the method of
points in the generallayout which de- approach to their restoration and pro-
termined the spectator's spatial percep- tection, also vary from one country to
tion of the entire historic townscape. the next. However, there is one central
An example of this is the section of the document -the world List of Historic
Moscow river valley as seen in con- Gardens drawn up by the ICOMOSI
junction with the town ofBrofifiitsy and IFLA Commit tee for Historic Gardens
76
-which can be regarded as a basis for an ture, extension of scale, or omission of
analysis of the surviving gardens of the certain details of the decoration, the
past. result being a new general appearance
AlIlandscapes, including works of distinct from the original one.
landscape architects, are moving and The appearanceof any work ofland-
unstablethings. They constantIy change scape architecture is, we have said,
with the passing of time, taking differ- something unstable.The perception and
ent forms, and "ageing". Changes in interpretation of the appearanceof any
deliberately designed landscapesoccur concrete phenomenon will vary as a
in the course of their natural develop- result of physical changes, social and
ment and as a result of the dying-off of economic reorganization and the evo-
their vegetation. AIl existent works of lution of ~ublic opinion. As a result,
landscape architecture have lived -de- this appearanceas it were finds a life of
pending on their age -through five or its own and can influence the subse-
six different stages in the history of quent development of landscape.
their vegetation. The more stable fea- A particularly important aspect of
tores -water, and the physical features historic gardens has always been their
of the ground -will u ndergolesschange, role in the improvernent of aesthetic
but they too are governed by the natural standards in landscape planning.
laws of graduaI change in landscape. Frorn an analysis and study of the
As a result, the garden seen by each peculiarities of the development of gar-
successivegeneration is somewhat dif- den design as seen in the vast field
ferent from that seenby its predecessor. covered by those gardens which have
The process ofadapting a--gardento . corne down to us, wehave been able to
new types of use regularly involves draw the following conclusions;
substantial alterations. These may be a. The present -day outlook of the
divided up as folIows: designer should involve a radically
a. radical alteration with a view to a new conception of the heritage of
deliberate change in appearance or parks and gardens, suited to bath the
composition. theoretical and the practical tasks of
b. interference due to the put ting up of the present day.
new buildings on the site. b. The characteristic appearanceof any
c. alterations due to the building of garden of original design is always
roads and the creation of public utili- the outcorne of given solutions to a
ties. nurnber of special problems con-
d. changes due to an increase in the nected with the treatment of nature;
number of visitors. this is clear frorn a retrospective
The most complex problem relating analysis of those historic gardens
to general appearanceis that of restora- still in existence.
tion or reconstruction of the individu al c. The historic gardens of each period
work. One may find quite a number of are in a given style in the history of
works whose characteristic appearance architecture corresponding to a given
has been altered through restoration, use of space. Taken together they
and this is a constantly growing ten- provide a historically-based general
dency today, typica1 aspects of which image of the garden as designed at
are simplification of the original struc- that period.
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