Grensschap Albertkanaal: a gaze protecting landscape values and creating cross border unity (Pieter...
-
Upload
heritageorganisationseu -
Category
Business
-
view
1.822 -
download
2
description
Transcript of Grensschap Albertkanaal: a gaze protecting landscape values and creating cross border unity (Pieter...
Grensschap Albertkanaal. A gaze protecting landscape values and
creating cross border unity
Pieter Caljé
Heritage Care Through Active CitizenshipMechelen
March 23th, 2009
The place: the border area west of Maastricht
The cultural values of the landscape
• Oldest historical landscape Netherlands and Flanders
• Archeology: first traces proto-human activity (300.000 B.P.)
• First agricultural activities (5400 B.C.)
• Key military activities related to the Dutch Revolt and later up to WW II and the Cold War
• Historical values linked to the landscape as we see it today
The project Grensschap
• Aim: to show and protect the cultural values of the landscape
• Threats:– massive development
activities (industry, house building, clay-explotation, railroads, canal, motorways)
– lack of control in planning because of the border
The Grensschap: the group
• some 15-20 citizens of both sides of the border• active since 2003• essential: unstructured as organization, just
monthly meetings, field trips, a newsletter and the will to accomplish something
• Unique: official participation civil servants three municipalities
• Bottom-up public-private partnership
The Cultural Biography of the landscape
• The concept -> anthropology (Kopytoff0• Link structure actual landscape – historical
events– Relief -> military operations– Loam -> continuity of agriculture– Brooks -> silex-gathering Neanderthalers
• Landscape evokes stories - the narrative landscape
• Experience historical sensation
The project
• Evoke historical meaning landscape on the spot – let the landscape tell its own stories
• Funding: Three municipalities, two provinces, EU -> € 700.000
• Three aims– Creating a trans-border unity– Use the concept of the cultural biography of the
landscape– Turn the defenseless landscape into something
defensible by letting it speak for itself
The artist’s conception
• Artist Hans Lemmen -> 14 landmarks spread over three municipalities and two countries
• Three unifying elements: megalith, border pole with information and three elms
• Creating a view, a informed gaze on the historical landscape on a agreeable spot
Dousberg – Willem of Orange and Alva in 1568
Lanakerveld – the oldest agricultural area in the Netherlands
Sieberg – scene of a major battle in 1747
The result
• Lafelt (Belgium): a protected landscape
• Zouwdal studies (Netherlands): recognition of landscape value in future development planning
Trans border effects
• Creation of a lasting trans-border network– New projects: – Trans-border c-2-c agriculture– Trans-border educational projects– Trans-border political cooperation
• Enhancing the trans-border conscience– Visiting the 14 landmarks create a feeling of
unity across the border– Our borderpoles soften up the border
Civil Society and Public Frameworks
• Project crosses all kind of political borders– Belgium-Dutch border– Bureaucratic borders (culture, nature, economics)– Hierarchy within bureaucracy (economy before nature
and culture)
• Thesis: – Top down approach reproduces those borders and
stifles innovations– Bottom up approach transgresses those borders and
enables innovations