Motivation behind Exploded View
Europe has a long tradition of describing and protecting parks, gardens and landed estates as heritage. Gardens and parks have been on UNESCO’s World Heritage List since the early years of the list in the 1970s. In 1992 UNESCO redefined the theme of cultural landscapes. Gardens and parks were then listed as ‘designed landscapes’. Three new categories were introduced: archaeological landscapes, ‘living’ or ‘continuing’ cultural landscapes (mainly agrarian or industrial landscapes) and ‘associative landscapes’ (mainly landscapes that are the result of natural forces, but that are also part of the human domain through their connections with religion or art). Nowadays, all categories are represented on the World Heritage List.
Exploded View is an exchange between two urban parks, the Parco Regionale dell’Appia Antica in Rome (organized by Krien Clevis, curator of the Appian Park) and the Amstelpark in Amsterdam (organized by Alice Smits, curator and director of Zone2Source). Exploded View has joined forces with the Interfaculty Research Institute CLUE+ (Cultural Landscapes and Urban Environment) at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, which has been founded in 2008 with the explicit aim to study cultural landscapes as heritage, focusing on the past and present of cultural landscapes in relation to urban transformations.
The central aim of Exploded View is to explore these two parks in Rome and Amsterdam by inviting an international group of artists, designers, academics and students each with accumulated knowledge and extensive experience in the field of research on cultural landscapes to research the parks in unexpected ways and to propose plans for future uses from the perspective of their heritage. Exploded View brings together artists, designers, landscape architects, academics, city planners, ecologists, curators, researchers, local experts and park users, in order to exchange and develop new perspectives on these two parks within current urban transformations.
Europe has a long tradition of describing and protecting parks, gardens and landed estates as heritage. Gardens and parks have been on UNESCO’s World Heritage List since the early years of the list in the 1970s. In 1992 UNESCO redefined the theme of cultural landscapes. Gardens and parks were then listed as ‘designed landscapes’. Three new categories were introduced: archaeological landscapes, ‘living’ or ‘continuing’ cultural landscapes (mainly agrarian or industrial landscapes) and ‘associative landscapes’ (mainly landscapes that are the result of natural forces, but that are also part of the human domain through their connections with religion or art). Nowadays, all categories are represented on the World Heritage List.
Exploded View is an exchange between two urban parks, the Parco Regionale dell’Appia Antica in Rome (organized by Krien Clevis, curator of the Appian Park) and the Amstelpark in Amsterdam (organized by Alice Smits, curator and director of Zone2Source). Exploded View has joined forces with the Interfaculty Research Institute CLUE+ (Cultural Landscapes and Urban Environment) at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, which has been founded in 2008 with the explicit aim to study cultural landscapes as heritage, focusing on the past and present of cultural landscapes in relation to urban transformations.
The central aim of Exploded View is to explore these two parks in Rome and Amsterdam by inviting an international group of artists, designers, academics and students each with accumulated knowledge and extensive experience in the field of research on cultural landscapes to research the parks in unexpected ways and to propose plans for future uses from the perspective of their heritage. Exploded View brings together artists, designers, landscape architects, academics, city planners, ecologists, curators, researchers, local experts and park users, in order to exchange and develop new perspectives on these two parks within current urban transformations.