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4.6.1 Rethinking Edible Landscape Emanuele Sommariva
Rethinking edible landscape Modern utopia for growing cities
Sustainable for necessity: from the hortus conclusus to the victory gardens
Today the popular idea on urban allotment gardens within the cities leads people to believe that these practices work on the residual, between buildings and infrastructures, with no real apparent logic, often hidden, inaccessible and especially if not regulated, less codified than “normal” ways to enjoy the space by the citizens (fig. 1). However, the hortus, in the sense of «small plot of land, enclosed by a wall or a hedge, planted with vegetables, flowers and fruit trees»1 has always had a wider social and historical embodiment. The reason of this is due to its association to the primary need of self-sufficiency, which contributed to the transition between nomadism to urbanity as documented by early forms of agriculture, through the organization of collective spaces in gardens. To understand the renewed interest that still arouse from the direct cultivation of vegetables and fruits (a Coldiretti survey of 2012 reports that in Italy 1,1 million m2 of public lands have been converted to allotment gardens) it’s worthy to ask ourselves which is the evolution of these practices and their historical values. In the Roman law, the etymology of the word hortus is very close to that of private enclosure and associated with the idea of urban life. Each member of the community, in fact, could be defined in this way only if he had at least two acres of land, the minimal property for a family. Plinio, in the Naturalis
Cover - Ruben Tortosa. “Itineraries of Construction” Figure 1 - XPIRAL+MTM. Pormetxeta Square Structure 2
Historiae2 writes that «in the law of the XII Tables you cannot find anywhere the word villa, but always hortus and heredium...» as to foreseen the arising influence of the suburbia hortuli during the Imperial era. In the Middle Ages, many European cities as well as smaller walled towns, were characterized by differently articulated systems of garden spaces in order to ensure daily production especially in times of crisis (war, pestilence, famine). There were two types of conduction of urban gardens: one for the subsistence of families and another for monastic institutions specialized in the cultivation of simples or herbs with healing properties. The strategic importance of these agri-urban spaces was already recognized in ancient times, when in 770 Charlemagne enacted the Capitulare de Villis: a collection of guidelines and prescription used to organize the productive gardens, orchards as well as suburban farms. It’s possible to track several historical examples in which urban gardens are depicted as important elements of daily life. For instance, the Tacuina Sanitatis3 are a significant source for studying many aspects of rural life in medieval times. When Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted the two Allegories and Effects of Good and Bad Government4, gave to the duality between city and countryside the image of the city of Siena. In the frescoes of the Good Government is represented a compact city, industrious and well-conserved, surrounded by solid and intact walls outside of which lies a fertile and secure countryside. In contrast, the work depicting the Bad Government, shows deliberately uncertain visuals, hindered by gloomy half-ruined buildings surrounded by fragmented and inhospitable landscape. For a long time, as claimed by Andre Corboz, «... from Cicero to the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert, the image of the traditional city corresponded with these iconographies, with the only difference that to the limit of the walls will be replaced in time the
strongest concept of urbanitas». If the concept of limit, is inherent in the very idea of the city, is also true that this demarcation was not always carried out by the presence of fortifications or other strong elements. Also at that time, the definition of a city border was entrusted with the natural element, in a very wide significance: from the Etruscan-Roman pomerium to the British greenbelt. In other words, the demarcation between urbs and rus is mostly a concept, a mental limit that tends to separate two realities. A buffer zone that had the function to not create contamination between two distinct worlds, each governed by well precise laws. This equilibrium was radically altered with the Industrial Revolution, leading to a worsening of the rural communities’ living conditions and the beginning of the rapid urbanization. In England, after the enactment of the Poor Law (1819), with the name of allotments (assignments) were granted more than 615.000 hectares for the construction of “community gardens or gardens of field”, especially in the suburban areas of London, Birmingham and Liverpool. The first legislation on urban allotments with a series of prescriptions on cultivation techniques, has been developed in Great Britain between 1840 and 1845 and has been regulated by a series of public acts which secure the production unit to a quarter of an acre (66 x 660 square feet = 0.40 hectares), still in force today. Since the Nineteenth century, this practice became widespread especially in Northern Europe, shaping around the first forms of associations related to urban allotments (e.g. kleingartens, schrebergarten, jardins ouvriers, community gardens, patronage gardens, veterans gardens, therapy or rehab gardens) with not only a production intent but also socio-educational values. But only the outbreak of the WWI and WWII associated with the forced conscription, the insecurity of the countryside and the continuous requests of raw materials for the troops, boomed the food demand in a way that not even the mechanization of agriculture was sufficient. In addition, the lack of peasants and the reduction in domestic consumption promoted an unexpected increase in spontaneous forms of urban farming within the frame of the Anglo American campaign ‘Dig for victory’ in which the allotments gardens played a crucial role.
Ideal cities and agrarian utopias
In 1516 Sir Thomas More transfigured the concept of Utopia, from the ancient Greek ou - topos (non place) and eu -topos (happy place), in the rational construction of an imaginary society, opening a new vision on a better world; Utopia therefore, is literally an “happy place that doesn’t exist”. After this vision, there were a lot of utopian projects that put in close relationship the spaces of urbanity with that of agriculture. Since 1826, Johann Heinrich von Thünen5 has defined a model of urbanity, which locates inside, enclosed in the urban tissue as well as between the peripheral zones, places for agricultural Figure 1 - Buon Governo - A. Lorenzetti Figure 2 - Allotments history 4
A decade later, partly in response to the Great Depression, urban planners saw this relationship with the peri-urban agriculture as a sort of bridge between the practice of subsistence agriculture in rural regions and of the social vulnerability of the working classes in suburban areas. It’s thought as a system of job rotation, in which workers could switch between their tasks in factories and others in collective farming, often represented in large-scale views to reconnect new territorial uses and urban spaces. In this sense, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City can be read as the apotheosis of American suburban model, as described in the book The Living City (1932), in which decentralized agricultural activities and suburban services become the structural matrix (0.4 ha of land for single property) of a low-density city model. Also Ludwig Hilberseimer, best known for the totalizing rationalism of Hochhausstadt (Highrise City, 1924), examined the effects of progressive decentralization of the urban form, abandoning functional models and mathematical positions in favor of more organic and landscape related ones. These theories are emphasized in his books ‘The City in the Landscape’ (1944) and ‘New Regional Pattern’ (1945-49), in which small and medium farms are configured as an important frame in order to control and organize the territory.
Figure 3 - The external garden of the White House, Washington D.C., 1917 Figure 4 - The weak urbanization model of Agronica, Branzi 1994 6
Figure 2 - Detroit Hildeberg Project, MosĂŠ Ricci
The urban agriculture revolution
If, after WWII, the countryside has been the territory of the city’s expansion, according to the temporary logic imposed by the market, today new sensibilities and paradigms are developing, completely different from those of traditional urban design. Several international experts (such as Joe Nasr, Andre Viljoen, AndrÊ Fleury and Pierre Donadieu, etc.) emphasize in their studies how much the sensibility towards the landscapes’ protection and identity, the demand of new public needs, as well as the renewed desire to live far away from congested areas are spreading rapidly in the society. Urban spaces, if properly interpreted, can offer great potential towards these kinds of transformation processes. Over the past 10 years, for example, the cities of Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan have produced within their administrative boundaries more than 65% of poultry, 16% of pigs and 45% of vegetables consumed by their own citizens. Recent studies show that in the United States more than 1/3 of valuable agricultural production is developed in the so-called Metropolitan Statistical Area. Furthermore, in the most densely populated areas of the World an intensive production of food to support local markets is located: the Dutch Randstad, in this sense, may be the most obvious example of green conurbation.
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After the World Summit on Food Security (Rome, 2009) sponsored by FAO, and international conferences such as ‘Cultivating the Capital’ (London Assembly, 2010) or specific research as ‘Re-naturing Cities’ (Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung - German Ministry of Building and Infrastructure, 2008), big metropolis like London, Paris, Berlin, Munich and New York adopted, in their political agendas, documents for food policy, connecting in a single framework different topics such as public health, food security, environment, territorial programs and more specific objectives such as the urban form. Urban policies in this sense are strictly connected with the social policies; concerning food quality as well as life quality, assuming transverse phenomena in most European cities and touching common issues, such as the peripherical contexts’ marginalization, the population’s ageing and the employment crisis. In many cases, what is creating the overcome from a “residual” peri-urban agriculture towards self-sufficient food systems, able to assert themselves as multifunctional components of the urban tissue, is the development of associative models. These participation processes can be divided into organizations of consumer groups or shop networks operated by local producers as well as other already existing models. In order to give some examples, both in Britain and in France there are associations of urban farmers which have been active since the end of the 19th Century and that the ‘National Society of Allotment & Leisure Gardeners’, founded in 1930, gathering about 2000 regional organizations of small farmers and local distributors. While NGOs have for long been engaged in these themes, architects, urban planners, landscape experts and designers have only recently considered the role of urban agriculture as a device for the regeneration of open spaces, transforming the cultural interpretation of the urban landscape, eco-districts or community-green buildings. The emphasis on sustainable design and planning, through certifications such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), contributed to encourage interventions that include social and ecological issues (such as reducing the amount of CO2 produced/stored in buildings with concrete structures, recollecting rainwater, creating green roofs and green facades, reducing the impacts on waste management, promoting alternative mobility, etc.). The connection between food and ecological topics, together with the architectural relationship between form and function, determine, therefore, Figure 5 - The external garden of the White House, Washington D.C., 2012 Figure 6 - The external garden of the White House, Washington D.C., 2012 Figure 7 - The external garden of the White House, Washington D.C., 2012
a transformation of the traditional typologies, involving both housing issues and those related to neighborhood facilities (such as schools, sport centers, libraries, shopping malls ...), as well as those related to informal architecture and urban community gardens. So in Barcelona some roundabouts and other infrastructural fringes are re-designed as parts of rural areas, while within the city the taste of jardin potager, a garden with ornamental plants mixed with vegetables on the model of the French one, derived from the productive gardens type is spreading. In the collective desires suburban open space will replace the traditional green urban area, which, on the other hand, is conceived as a space of social control, while the countryside is perceived in a perspective of freedom, of multi-use, of opportunity to interact with nature. The rural landscape replaces the park as a place for trips, leisure and relax, also becoming a design style for new urban gardens. Many examples are already visible in various ‘rururbanization’ projects promoted in France such as in the Parc de Lilas in Vitry-sur-Seine, in the vineyards of Montmartre, in the urban agricultural parks of Bercy, or in the metropolitan area of Montpellier, in the Parc de la Lironde, where the designers transpose the agricultural matrix of the countryside into abandoned urban areas, articulating the spaces into 10
a sequence of natural landscapes typical of the bocage, but also in Italy, in the community gardens of the southern park of Milan, in the Chianti or San Martino’s hills, as well as in the Salento’s olive groves, where the existing agro-landscape is defined by a wider process of reorganization, maintaining its specific identity without the only purpose of productivity and well summarized by the Piano Territoriale di Coordinamento della Provincia di Lecce with the slogan Salento as a park. The need to structure processes and policies to give value to the open territory as well as the urban leftovers through farming activities, may coincide, as observed by Donadieu, with the idea of «…continuous green infrastructures, defined by the scale of intervention in order to regulate the relationship between city and territory». The urban and peri-urban agriculture, as described in this paper, implies to re-think the idea of city and countryside, beyond the traditional theories in favor of policies that are not limited to ensure the passive protection of landscapes (ineffective and often negative), but to ensure their continuous transformation through urban participation programs and the specific management of interventions, generated by the relationship between places and the communities established in them.
References 1.Beard M. (1998) ‘Imaginary Horti: or up the garden path’, in Horti Romani, atti del Convegno Internazionale (a cura) Cima M., La Rocca E., 4-6 maggio 1995. 2. Bovey A. (2005) Tacuinum sanitatis: an early renaissance guide to health, Sam Foog: London 3. Cabedoce B., Pierson P. (1996) Cent ans d’histoire des jardins ouvriers 1896-1996. La Ligue française du coin de terre et du foyer, L’École des filles Créaphis: Grane 4. Clement G., Baudelet L., Basset F., Le Roy A. (2008) Jardins partagés, Terre Vivante Éditions: Paris 5. Clevely A. (2006) The Allotment Book: a practical guide, Harper-Collins Donadieu P. (2004) La construction de la ville campagne. Vers la production d’un bien commun agriurbain, Colloqui: Torino 6. Fleury A., Donadieu P. (2003) De l’agriculture péri-urbaine à l’agriculture urbaine, Courrier de l’environnement de l’INRA, vol. 31, pp. 45-61 7. Ingersoll R., Fucci B., Sassatelli M. (2007) AGRICivismo. Agricoltura urbana per la riqualificazione del paesaggio. Linee guida e buone pratiche per l’agricoltura urbana), Regione Emilia Romagna 8. Marcone A. (2004) Storia dell’agricoltura romana, Carocci: Roma 9. Marigliano E. (2013) Il Capitulare de Villis. Vita quotidiana al tempo di Carlo Magno, Gaspari: Udine 10. Mougeot L.J.A. (2005) Agropolis. The Social, Political and Environmental dimensions of Urban Agriculture, Earthscan & Idrc: London-Ottawa 11. Osmundson T. (1999) Roof Gardens: history, design, and construction, Norton Company: New York 12. Ricci M. (2012) New Paradigms, Actar-List: Barcellona 13. Rist M., Feiner A. (2011) Das Schrebergarten Buch, BLV: Berlin 14. Schröder J., Weigert K. (2010) Landraum beyond rural design, Berlin: Jovis 15. Steel C. (2009) Hungry City. How food shapes our lives, Random House. 16. Trasi M., Zabiello A. (2009) Guerrilla Gardening, manuale di giardinaggio e resistenza contro il degrado urbano, Kowalski - gruppo Feltrinelli: Milano 17. Van Der Sande B. (2012) Food for the City: A Future for the Metropolis, 010 publishers: Rotterdam 18. Vasta R., Rose B. (2003) Hortus conclusus in extra moenia, Alinea: Firenze 19. Viljoen A., Bohn K., Howe J. (2005) Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes: designing Urban Agriculture for sustainable cities, Architectural Press: Oxford 20. Warnecke P. (2001) Laube, Liebe, Hoffnung. Kleingartengeschichte, JovisVerlag: Berlin 21. Way T., Brown M. (2010) Digging for Victory: gardens and gardening in Wartime Britain, Sabrestorm Publishing: London White M., Przybylski M. (2010) Bracket, architecture, environment: on Farming, 12
Notes 1. DEVOTO G., OLI G.C. (2011) Dictionary of the Italian Language, Le Monnier Mondadori Group: Florence 2. The Naturalis historiae were written by Plinio il Vecchio between 23 and 79. In particular, the horticulture methods are treated in the 19° book entitled Gardening and ornamental plants, other vegetables, herbs and shrubs. 3. The Tacuina Sanitatis are manuscripts of medical science, dating around 1360, which describe the effects on the human body and the medical properties of vegetables, fruits, spices and foods of various kinds. Written in the form of short precepts, are inspired by the Arabic texts known as the Taqwin al‑Sihha (Tables of Health) written by the doctor Ibn Butlan, who worked in Baghdad in the mid-eleventh century, depicting scenes of medieval and rural life. 4. The cycles of frescoes made by Ambrogio Lorenzetti and known as ‘Allegories and Effects of Good and Bad Government ‘ are kept in the Sala dei Nove’, inside the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena (1337-1340) 5. Von Thünen in his essay : Der isolierte Staat: Beziehung Landwirthschaft auf und National-Okonomie (The isolated city) the agricultural rent depends not only on different soil fertility, but also on the distance from the main points of distribution (markets). The cost of transport / work commensurate with the distance then becomes the key variable in determining the amount of production revenues.
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