Prati urbani / City meadows
I prati collettivi nel paesaggio della città / Community fields in urban landscapes
a cura di / edited by Franco Panzini
Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche-Antiga Edizioni
Treviso 2018
bilingual edition, in Italian and English
312 pages, 146 illustrations in colour and13 in black and white
cover price 25 euros, ISBN 978-88-8435-113-5
(Memorie, 18)
The volume, edited by Franco Panzini, contains contributions by: Jeppe Aagard Andersen, Jean-Marc Besse, Federica Dell’Acqua, Sonja Dümpelmann, Peter Del Tredici, Lars Hopstock, Imma Jansana, Norbert Kühn, Luigi Latini, Franco Panzini, Teri Rueb, Serena Savelli, Laura Tinti, José Tito Rojo, Elisa Tomat, Thaïsa Way, Udo Weilacher, Simonetta Zanon.
Community meadows are municipally or collectively owned areas of open land that are part of the anti-monumental history of European cities. Lacking a codified urban aesthetic, they have discreetly accompanied modern urban centers throughout their formation and consolidation process. Present throughout Europe, urban meadows were popular places for collective fun and transgressions, sites for markets and for the exchange of produce from the surrounding countryside for goods made in urban workshops and factories, open spaces where town-dwellers could go for strolls, both ‘poor relations’ and precursors to the great tradition of the urban parks.
And it is here, in these scraps of uncultivated land so closely tied to the histories of towns that the first encounters came about between countryside and city, between densely inhabited urban fabric and green empty spaces. These are the places that have prepared the way for our changed attitudes to the natural succession that occurs when plants reclaim abandoned areas as well as to the many forms of temporary use that they can accommodate. Meadows and their history have shaped our attitudes to contemporary urban landscapes.
The thirteenth edition of the Benetton Foundation’s International Landscape Study Days (Treviso, 16th-17th February 2017) focused on the different social and planning permutations assumed by such places, both in the past and in the present. In this book eighteen authors will propose in-depth discussions of the issues debated on that occasion, exploring these vast empty spaces rooted in the history of towns and their value so as to produce an up-to-date study of the new meanings of common space in today’s civic context.
Contents
Prefazione / Foreword, by Luigi Latini, Franco Panzini, Simonetta Zanon
Fenomenologia dei prati comuni / Phenomenology of community lawns
Franco Panzini, Prati di città. Per una storia dei prati civici, 11 / Urban meadows. Towards a history of community fields, 29
José Tito Rojo, I prati nei giardini di al-Andalus, 38/ Meadows in the gardens of al-Andalus, 54
Jean-Marc Besse, Il paesaggio dei beni comuni: luoghi, pratiche, concetti, 64 / The landscape of common goods: places, practices, concepts, 71
Udo Weilacher, Lars Hopstock, Stabilizzare le strutture del paesaggio per abitare gli spazi urbani, 77 / Stabilizing landscape structures for living urban spaces, 93
Serena Savelli, Nuovi prati: cinque caratteri distintivi di una natura urbana polimorfa, 102 / New commons: five distinctive features of polymorphic urban nature, 109
Disegnare con le piante spontanee / Designing with weeds
Elisa Tomat, Le parole dei prati, 115 / The words of meadows, 125
Norbert Kühn, Interagire con la natura urbana. Come la vegetazione spontanea migliora gli spazi verdi postmoderni, 130 / Interacting with urban nature. How spontaneous vegetation enhances postmodern greenspaces, 146
Peter Del Tredici, Teri Rueb, Navigare nella natura al suono di un’app, 159 / Navigating nature with a cell phone and a sound app, 169
Narrazioni / Narrations
Luigi Latini, Amsterdam, il Museumplein nello sguardo di un paesaggista scandinavo, 1992-1999, 175 / Amsterdam, the Museumplein through the gaze of a Scandinavian landscape architect, 1992-1999, 186
Jeppe Aagard Andersen, Elogio della panchina, 190 / In praise of the park bench, 194
Laura Tinti, Tra disciplina e consuetudine. Prati di notte, 196 / Balancing regulations with custom. Meadows by night, 210
Atlante / Atlas
Sonja Dümpelmann, Aeroporti come prati comuni, 217 / Airport commons, 228
Federica Dell’Acqua, Tempelhof e altre esperienze berlinesi. Alla ricerca dei tratti del parco contemporaneo, 235 / Tempelhof and other Berlin experiences. Exploring the features that distinguish contemporary parks, 244
Thaïsa Way, Gas Works Park come bene comune: l’impegno nella sfera pubblica, 250 / Gas Works Park as commons: engaging in the public realm, 260
Imma Jansana, Spazi collettivi nei limiti della metropoli. El Prat de Llobregat a Barcellona, 265 / Public spaces on the fringe of the metropolis. El Prat de Llobregat in Barcelona, 273
Simonetta Zanon, Un prato per la città di Treviso, 276 / A prato for the city of Treviso, 286
Note sugli autori / Notes on authors, 293
Indice dei nomi e dei luoghi / Index of names and places, 301
Franco Panzini, architect and landscape historian, is a guest lecturer at Iuav University in Venice and at the School of Architecture of the University of Rome 3. He has published numerous books on the history of gardens and urban green spaces, including Giardini storici. Teoria e tecniche di conservazione e restauro (Officina, Rome 1985, 2nd edition 1989, 3rd edition 1996), Per i piaceri del popolo. L’evoluzione del giardino pubblico in Europa dalle origini al XX secolo (Zanichelli, Bologna 1993; the book was awarded Grinzane Hanbury Botanic Gardens Prize), Giardini delle Marche (Federico Motta, Milan 1999), Progettare la natura (Zanichelli, Bologna 2005, expanded edition in Portuguese Projetar a natureza, Senac-São Paulo, São Paulo 2013). Among his recent essays: “Pines, Palmes and Holm Oaks: Historicist Modes in Modern Italian Cityscapes” (in Modernism and Landscape Architecture, 1890-1940, National Gallery of Art-Yale University Press, New Haven 2015), “Working with architects: collaborations, 1937-1960” (in Pietro Porcinai and the Landscape of Modern Italy, Ashgate, London 2016), “Las Geometrias del Agua” (in Burle Marx. Paisajes del Agua, TC Cuadernos, Valencia 2015), “Chandigarh, ciudad de los árboles” (in Paisaje Con+Texto, EUG, Granada 2016). He is a member of the Italian Association of Landscape Architects (AIAPP) and of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH); regional representative of the APGI (Italian Association of Parks and Gardens); member of the Board of Pietro Porcinai Foundation and of the Society of Architectural Historians.
