A New Landscape Vision as Interconnection Architectural Heritage-Society-Landscape

Interconnection Architectural Heritage-Society-Landscape as a New Landscape Vision

Figure 1. “The Prussian Sahara ”

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Challenge tackled 2.1. Historical events

The Curonian Spit (also called Neringa) is a unique sandy and wooded cultural landscape on a coastal spit which features small Curonian lagoon settlements. Formed by the sea, wind and human activity, the territory continues to be shaped by this interaction between humans and nature. This natural and social process influences the cultural landscape.

The reggion has been for centuries an area of massive travelling dunes. The entire length of the dunes is made up of ravines of patterns blown by the wind. Grassy flora covers all the dunes and sand hills. Its few fishing villages used to be ephemeral: over ten of them are known to have been dessipated by the moving dunes. The powerful dunes that used to bury entire fishermen villages were tamed by planting pine forests (Fig. 1).

Nida is a small town which sits at the end of the Curonian Spit. The original settlement on the road along the Curonian Spit was located about 5 km south of its today's position near the Hohe Düne

(High Dune) at Cape Grobštas (from Old Prussian: grabis, "hill"). Continuously threatened by sand drifts, Nida was moved away from the approaching dune to today's position in the 1730s.

After World War I Nidden, together with the northern half of the Spit, became part of the Klaipeda Region under terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and was annexed by Lithuania in 1923.

Officially renamed Nida, the village nevertheless remained a predominantly German settlement; the border with the remaining German (East Prussian) half of the land lay only a few kilometers to the south. When the Klaipeda region was incorporated into Lithuania in 1923, the Curonian Spit became a source of inspiration for Lithuanian artists, but it continued to attract German artists too.

The spirit of “free art” remained alive in Nida, unlike in Germany, where in 1933 a campaign against modern art, called “degenerate”, was mounted by the National Socialist regime. Nida, which was called “the Prussian Sahara” in the 19th century, was renamed “a paradise of painters” and “a land of miracles” in the 20th century. In the forties, houses and studios in the local style were built by Carl Knauf (1867–1944) and Richard Birnstengel (1887–1968), and in 1929–1930 a summerhouse was built by Thomas Mann.

Nida became nearly deserted in 1939, like all of the Curonian Spit, as a result of the Red Army advance and the evacuation of East Prussia at the end of World War II, and the eventual expulsion of surviving German inhabitants. The German population was expelled by force after World War II by the occupying Soviet forces, accompanied by widespread ethnic cleansing. Like elsewhere in present-day Kaliningrad Oblast, the assimilation of the territory and colonization by Russian settlers was completed by changing the historic German toponyms to Russian ones throughout the Russian-controlled part of the Spit. The town was reassigned to Lithuania under border changes promulgated at the Potsdam Conference, and became part of the Lithuanian SFSR within the Soviet Union; since 1990 it has been part of independent Lithuania. The Second World War delayed the development of the artists. The impressive collection of paintings that had been built up in Blode’s hotel was destroyed at the beginning of 1945, and a lot of works by artists who had been living and working here also disappeared.

The original allocation of Nida’s inhabitants (a unique blend of Lithuanian, Latvian and German cultures) largely fled the Soviet Genocide, but their traditions are still preserved. The weather vanes that once crowned their boat masts (identifying the village of origin and thus helping to prevent overfishing) have now became village emblems and an art form. They are common in landscaping, asserting the local identity.

Until the 20th century, most people in the area made their living by fishing. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, tourism flourished; many Germans, mostly the descendants of the inhabitants of the area, choose the Curonian Spit (especially Nida, as no visas are needed for Germans in Lithuania) as their holiday destination.

2.2. UNESCO World Heritage’s characteristics

The Curonian Spit is a 98 km long, curved sand-dune spit that separates the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea coast. Its southern portion lies within Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia and its northern within southwestern Lithuania. After 2000, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site shared by the two countries. The Curonian Spit is situated in the Curonian Spit National Park in Lithuania and the Kurshskaya National Park of the Russian Federation. The status of these National Parks assurances the protection of the cultural landscape. Both National Parks have the common goal of preserving the natural and cultural attributes. The Governments have created the National Parks authorities,

who play a key role in the conservation of the property, forest and coastal management. The local community is directly involved in the conservation of the property’s tangible heritage and also carries the region’s intangible heritage. Different attributes of the property require different protection regimes and management activities. Therefore, different zones have been established in the National Parks for various specific purposes, such as strict reserves, reserves, recreational, residential and other zones.

After intensive erosion in the 17th and 18th centuries, the dunes began moving towards the Curonian Lagoon, burying the oldest settlements. At the turn of the 19th century, it became evident that human habitation would no longer be possible in the area without immediate action and a heedful intervention. Dune stabilization work began, and has continued ever since. By the end of the 19th century, a protective dune ridge was formed along the seashore to prevent inland sand migration, and the Great Dune Ridge was reinforced using trees and brushwood hedges. Currently, forests and sands dominate the protected area of Curonian Spit. Urbanized areas (eight small settlements) cover just about 6% of the land.

The Curonian Spit showcases high landscape values. It is an example of a special landform subjected to human intervention and natural development such as climatic variations. The cultural, natural and human-made elements of the Curonian Spit cultural landscape illustrate the most important features of its formation through their shapes, volumes, materials, and functions. The authenticity of the landscape is reflected by the tangible and spiritual values of the different historical periods that shaped its identity. The vitality, spirituality and special mood of the cultural landscape and its unique characteristics is further highlighted by authentic forms of local intangible heritage. These include the marine cultural heritage; traditional trades, folklore and artistic traditions; unique methods of protective coast and dune ridge management and forest maintenance; sustainable recreational activities and a cultural leisure tradition dating back to the 19th century. The fisherman’s life is being represented on the Ethnographic fisherman farmstead of the XIX – XX centuries. There are exhibited furniture, utensils and other equipment used for housekeeping.

The spatial-planned structure and architecture of ancient fishermen villages turned into resort settlements (ancient wooden fishermen houses, professionally designed buildings of the 19th century, including lighthouses, piers, churches, schools, villas). Elements of marine cultural heritage and also natural and human-made elements including the distinctive Great Dune Ridge and individual dunes illustrates people's adaptation to environment.

Relics of ancient parabolic dunes, a human-made protective coastal dune ridge, relics of moraine islands, seacoast and littoral forests and littoral capes, ancient forests, mountain pine forests and other unique sand flora and fauna including a bird migration path, all of this represent the original landscape of the region.

The social-cultural traditions, spirituality, and the social perception of the area, which reflect the local lifestyle formerly is centered on fishermen, artists, scientists, yachtsmen and gliders, travellers and other visitors.

Pedestrianized Central Nida blusters the Curonian Spit's tough collection of dark red vernacular former fishermen homes which represents the main architectural heritage of region (Fig. 2). In general, the boundaries of the World Heritage property assume attributes that are particularly sensitive to pressures such as climate change, severe weather events, fire, excessive development and tourism. Because of the continuous evolution and development of the cultural landscape, in protected areas becomes an important part to regulate the number of visitors to the property. New developments and other economic activities had be regulated to avoid any irreversible changes.

Figure 2. Shapes, materials and colours The most vulnerable elements of the Curonian Spit cultural and architectural landscape are the oldest wooden fishermen’s houses, the wooden decor of professionally designed buildings, and the human-made protective coastal dune ridge, which is influenced by the natural coastal processes under the influence of global climate change and also by the inevitable human activity.

New construction is now nearly banned in Neringa, but an exception was made for the Roman Catholic Church (2003). Its design tastefully incorporates vernacular architecture combining wood and thatch with modern forms.

On this situation, in terms of community, question is: ’what role have the architectural heritage in the sustainable development of Curonian’s region?’, considering the fact that this region is subject to so many regulations and obligations.

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Methodology Site specific workshop in Easa Lithuania

Taking part in one of the workshops organized by EASA gave me the opportunity to observe and analyze the situation within it and all at once to try to create a scenario for possible solutions of the problem of the role of architectural heritage in the community.

EASA is a network of architecture students from all over the continent. Every summer the assembly is held in a different country, where around 500 creative minds live together in a self-sustaining, community-like setting. The event takes place over two weeks and includes lectures, building and theoretical workshops. EASA acts as a platform for the exchange of social, architectural and cultural

experiences. The main focus of the summer assembly is its workshops, in which around 30 groups of students work on different projects. EASA workshops are diverse, ranging from the discussion of hypotheses and concepts, photography of local people and places, performance art to the construction of small pavilions and installations.

The workshop in which I took part was site specific and it aims at improving the environment conditions of the school. We understood the Neringos Gimnazija School as an ”expanded site”, a place with a strong community of teachers and students in which families and Nidas citizens get to interact with each other. At the same time, the school could be understood as a cultural hub, a place where knowledge is produced and distributed.

The workshop included four important moments: looking for spirit of this place, data gathering, or contradictions, similarities and creative concerns, synthesizing / testing scenarios and materials and constructing interventions.

In the first stage, we tried to understand the place where we will be working and which are its main features. Also, we tried to find out as much information and to observe the general spirit of the city to be able to approach the situation as beneficial to the community and its needs, but also to Nidas landscape. Data gathering phase was based on going out to the public and interviews.

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Observing the role of architectural heritage in the development of a community

Curonian Spit is a natural and cultural landscape that is characterized by continuous struggle of humans with nature. The whole history of the place is representing venerability, temporality and filled with examples of adaptive transformations that are generating an unique spirit of this place.

After The Curonian Spit has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site of outstanding natural beauty, it is facing new challenge of preservation its natural and cultural landscape. The contradiction of preservation of the temporality is informing all the processes in the peninsula including decision making process, heavily affecting the habits and lifestyle of local inhabitants, gradually turning self-sustaining environment into vocational resort.

Due to the importance of tourism and fishing for the regional economy, which causes pollution of sea and coastlines, disastrous effects have marked the landscape and social development of the area. Another concern is that increased tourism destroys the natural landscape that attracts it. For this reason, measures have been taken, such as banning tourists from hiking in certain areas of the spit.

The current state of Nida’s landscape combine desperate methods to make tourism, the only way to earn income, with drastic decision to keep intact architectural heritage. The fact that landscape changes under the influence of economic, social and political factors is in contradiction to the way architectural heritage is preserved. By lack of effective adaptation of protected architectural heritage at the actual landscape, generates ever-changing situations of building illegal and inconsistent with the context. Currently there is a demand to tear down the homes on the region.

These homes are owned by people who were given permits to build by corrupt local government officials. The demand to tear the homes down is based on the fact that the Spit is a UN World Heritage Site and the only structures that were to be allowed there were fishing shacks.

Nida is mostly dependent on tourism, which makes locals to rent out their houses and go to live in a peripheral area of Nida in refitted garages (Fig. 3). The new buildings which appear most often illegally show the struggle between Nidas community and existing regulation. The most are owned

by urban rich that consider town an upmarket holiday resort that offer to foreign tourists an amazing place to visit. Thus, a lot of the so called historic houses are newly built and only have traditionally looking elevations, some of the pathways are being changed, while other ones are left unattained and with no lighting.

Figure 3. Constructions for living The lagoon coast is lined by numerous wooden vernacular style ex-fishermen homes, some still adorned by thatched roofs and many housing small family-owned guesthouses and restaurants. The nearby port is still the village's heart but pleasure vessels, many available for hire or excursions, have since replaced the traditional kurenas fishing boats. The lagoon and Nida are popular among fishermen in winter time, but abusive fishing generates a real problem to the locals, because they use fishing as a way to maintain tourism. Other touristic attraction is smoked fish sold in a lot of places, but actually the fish was not caught here, but just bought at the port city Klaipeda and sold here as if the local fishermen had caught it here.

3.3 A contextual approach t o architecture

The next step involved the process of designing and testing where we advocate a design that is focusing more on what it does, neither on how it looks. In this way we see the process of designing as a continuous spatial experiment that provides a stage for different scenarios to happen and generates questions and dialogue with context and users.

The design must be capable of affording various conditions of inhabitation and playfulness for kids while guaranteeing structural stability, ease of construction and affordability: the proposals must comply with all building regulations and be conceived so that it is possible for us to build it together with the help of teachers, parents and (hopefully) students of Neringos Gimnazija.

A limited amount of resources and a strict budget required a careful and precise understanding of the role of each part within the whole and a commitment to optimize the use of materials. The workshop investigated and explored the possibilities and limits of wood construction for building a series of interventions. The resulting devices must be conceived as “gifts� to the school and they will improve the student’s comfort and working environment (light, views, air quality, usability, noise, tidiness, warmth...).

As an open process, the proposals were led to interventions that end up performing in different ways from those initially imagined (Fig. 4). The process that we followed tried to be permanently connected to the school community situation. All the ideas or proposals were emerging from an open discussion process with the teachers and the students from the school and, as a concluding, we did two constructions, one modular and another one attached to the existing slope.

The most important thing that marked the approach of the workshop was the contact with the community which we built for. Contextual approach to what we had built determined acceptance of the results by the students and the school, many of them just starting to use them when we were still there . A similar approach could be applied in other areas of architecture, like architectural heritage preservation.

Figure 4. Marked landscape More than that, the architectural heritage belongs to everyone, each of its parts is nevertheless at the mercy of any individual. The public should be properly informed, because citizens are entitled to participate in decisions affecting their environment and also those decisions must taking into account the needs of community.

A problem in the legislative decisions is also a probability that greatly infringes how to work with protected area. The limits that are imposed to the people to preserve the architectural and natural heritage are sometimes exaggerated and generate cultural and economic collapse of the area.

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Conclusion Sustainability of architectural heritage

An overview of identified issues captures multiple elements that shows a strong relationship between the community, architecture, social changes, historical events and, last but not least, natural phenomena. The relationship between architectural heritage and this complex phenomenon that is subject to continuous and unpredictable changes, the landscape, can be a lasting one if these two fields are intertwined and interconnected.

One way architectural heritage can be protected and also provide a sustainable approach is to adapt to the context of the city/region. Adaptability is one of the corner stones of sustainability.

Understanding the context, its vulnerability, and improving it by punctual interventions that, without altering general existing environment, could provide a space for future transformations. It is about “Performative” and “Relational”. By understand architecture not as an object design, but as a performative element that has to be possible to engage with and that is able to improve local condition.

Bibliography/Webography: www.wikipedia.org; whc.unesco.org; www.lituanus.org; www.truelithuania.com; Ingold, Tim, The Temporality of the landscape, 1993, World Archaeology Cosgrove, Denis, Prospect, Perspective and the Evolution of the Landscape Idea, 1984 Loughborough University Ingold, Tim, Culture on the ground , 2004 SAGE Publication Olwig, Kenneth, Landscape unmasked, 2003 Cultural Geographies Kaszeta, Daniel J., Lithuanian Resistance to Foreign Occupation 1940-1952, 1988 LITUANUS Foundation