Prolegomena to the philosophical park by Сердце Города

Authors: Alexander Popadin, culture expert Danila Kotov, architect Katerina Cherevko, artist Dmitry Ponomareff, writer and composer

Prolegomena to the Philosophical Park on Kant Island (Kneiphof) and a development scenario for the new Main building of the Kant Museum v.2.0 (extracts) The concept is the development and the follow-up of the “Cultural, architectural and spatial pre-concept of the museum and landscape complex v. 1.0 “Kant Museum of the 21st century and the Philosophical Park on Kneiphof Island” that has been developed on the instruction of the Kaliningrad Region Government and on the order of the non-profit partnership Urban Planning Bureau “Heart of the City” in December 2013. (please see http://www.tuwangste.ru/en/objects/kontseptsiya-muzeya-i-kanta-21-veka)

SECTION A Philosophical park on Kneiphof Island

Extract from the Introductory Section by Alexander Popadin

Philosophical Park on Kneiphof Island: first options and approaches Introduction: two experiences of philosophy and a park Conventionally speaking, there are only two philosophical parks in the world today. The first one is known almost to anyone: this is Ryoanji Temple Stone Garden in Kyoto (Japan). The garden has fifteen uncut stones at first sight randomly scattered on the relatively small sanded ground area (30x10 m).The ground area is surrounded by the veranda with benches for visitors. Some of them spend hours meditating in this garden. The garden is a national pride for Japan; it is annually visited by crowds of people, including those who can be hardly classified as intellectuals 1. The garden is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Another philosophical park is almost unknown. In 2000, on Capri Island, it was founded by a Swede who left Sweden because of his frustrated academic career. The park is a plot of 11 000 sq m rough terrain divided into three provisional zones: “materialism”, “idealism” and “wisdom”. The picturesque natural landscape is complemented by alleys and tablets with relevant thematic quotations from the great thinkers and philosophers. The park is a nice but not a-must-see attraction for holiday-makers from hotels and sanatoria of the island of Capri and it does not have a chance to become someone else’s pride except for its founders. All other parks of the world appear to be different variations of landscape design primarily related to aesthetic experience and cannot be literally defined as “philosophical”. Proceeding to the reflections and conceptual design of the Philosophical Park on Kant Island (Kneiphof) it will be useful to take into account the example of the parks described above in order avoid any resemblance.

Problem statement Localization Tsentralny Island (Kant Island, Kneiphof in Kaliningrad (Russia) Subject-matter A Philosophical Park should stimulate, inspire and induce philosophical questioning (i.e. it should be a place where philosophizing is evoked beyond the boundaries of philosophy (Alexander Pyatigorsky). Territory The area of green spaces and alleys is 10 h 1

Nevertheless the park is conventionally called a “Garden stone” and its philosophical nature stems not from the subject of demonstration/declaration but from “the way of consumption” by human consciousness: from whatever vantage point, one of the fifteen stones is always obscured by other stones from the line of sight. Viewers are supposed to contemplate both “visible” and “invisible” things.

SECTION A Philosophical park on Kneiphof Island

*Extract from the essay by Dmitry Ponomareff, translated by author. June 9, 2014

Towards a Philosophical Park* 1. Philosophical asking and aesthetic contemplation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; two start points for philosophical park concept Great oak trees and lovely spots in a sacred grove are sublime. Beds of flowers, low hedges and trees trimmed into shape are beautiful. Immanuel Kant ( THE SENSE OF THE BEAUTIFUL AND OF THE SUBLIME (1764) The ways of philosophy and art crossed each other for ages but in spite of polyhedral surface of mutual touch we still distinguish both concepts and practices as two different and independent spheres of social realization. And although a lot of attempts philosophers had at research fields of art creating a theoretical synthesis of artistic experience within more wide system of abstract knowledge were enough helpful for art and brought some benefit in development of formal logic we hardly could say the same viŃ e versa keeping in mind that works of art are products of another language and another way of thinking. And nowadays with all the utilitarian perception of philosophy in the public consciousness when even some commercial companies "must have" their own philosophy we do understand it's not more than a sort of convention, fashion or metaphor born by contemporary life. (...) But how do these considerations can affect our search of philosophical park's concept? First of all, it is obvious now that such a concept is based on a contradiction between philosophical questioning and aesthetic contemplation (which gives a ground to landscape art) as a completely different forms of human thinking and behavior and as long as we do not clarify the essence of this contradictions, our starting points for the idea of "Philosophical Park" won't match each other and would stay rather as inapplicable extremes than a workspace of thinking.

2. Space as material, environment and language of landscape gardening art Considering landscape gardening art we have to operate with the concept of space as if we refresh our knowledge of the matter of sound speaking about music. Creation of space is a direct task of gardening art but nevertheless it's quite clear nobody creates certain void or extension but some spots and even localities are rather to be designed and structured in a single materially organized environment as it is mentioned in architecture in general. But if the architecture in its original sense is largely focused on the creation of material structures that have a direct practical value, the gardening art, appeared in architecture on some facultative basis, has a deal more with the creation of an aesthetic feelings, spatially functional contexts, semiotic integrity and for that matter it is especially relevant in the era of urban planning and development of urban studies. But how the space like a basic concept of landscape art is considered in philosophy? Unfortunately, even years that we could spend in a detailed study of this question would not bring a definite answer. Being a philosophical category since Aristotle, becoming an extent, "res extensa" along with matter and finally as a priori form of our sensual perception after Kant, the space is unavailable as a discursive concept. Bibihin in his comments to Heidegger's "Art and Space" writes the following: "... Plato finds nearly impossible "to say anything exactly about this difficult and vague kind ": in fact he denies a definability of space in view of its "Extremely doubtful involvemen " to the field of concepts (Timaeus 49a, 51 ab). Aristotle is confused not only about idea of topos or place-space but doesn't know if it really exists (Physics IV1, 209a, 29 - 30) ... It is clear there were no term for "Space" in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages"

Nevertheless such a situation our thinking is involved in doesn't look very strange. Being a sort of pure openness, vastness, receptacle, unconcealedness and even an infinite state of joy as it is taught by Mahamudra in Buddhism the space remains aside from philosophical questioning. Hiding nothing from the human eye, it cannot open something extra in availability of existence, while the philosophy is just formulation of the questions that humanity dares to ask in aware of its finiteness and limits . In other words, the space is rather an opportunity and response than something we could raise the question about (...) At the same time if even we agree with Kant concerning abstract mode of the mind the space looks like we still feel it is a quite tangible stage humanity asks questions about its own destiny on. These issues brought into the living space transform it in semiotic integrity, in language of communication becoming an intersection of social and physical, Plato's "physei" and "thesei" - natural, socio-contractual and divine. At this intersection the space comes from its uncertainty as a place or landscape and the language getting some spatial values that perpetuate our knowledge in recognizable and renewable forms becomes a repository of mythology and history. Mankind asks questions and finding its own historicity in the questioning it reads nature and landscape as a text, like a book of being ("The nature is a book, the message or philosophical fable ... to express the essence of nature it takes more than physics, physics is only alphabet. Nature is Aequation, equation of the unknown value, the ancient Hebrew text written only with consonants where our mind has to put the necessary points. ("From Hamann's letter to Kant. December 1759). Space is open to mankind through a place. Locality, landscape becomes a spatial environment. Thus being outside of the scope of asking the space through the language and locality enables the development of thinking, both in terms of architecture of logically formalized knowledge and in territorial development of the world.

2. Philosophical park Pregelmunde on the island of Kneiphof .. und sind nur Mund. Aber auf einmal bricht der grosse Herzschlag heimlich in uns ein, so dass wir schrein â&#x20AC;&#x201D;, und sind dann Wesen, Wandlung und Gesicht. Rilke (...) In the case of Kneiphof or the island of Kant, the problem is that we virtually have no obvious everyday local practices ( like recreation, sports or some contemplative art public areas of Baroque) for which you can transform the space, and in turn the purely philosophical practices are not obvious to majority that eventually forms city budget and public opinion. Although pure philosophical approach didn't give any tangible result concerning space itself nevertheless in the image of place, locality and landscape we have some solid ground of thinking considerably useful not only for a high brow University public but for any more or less educated citizens ready to perceive their dwelling in its historicity. And in this way Kneiphof looks like a historical organism with cultural and historical landscape well documented but de facto completely lost and in this half abandoned state it gives us a sort of call and temptation of never existed before (nor in times of Kant and neither later) possibility to get "at once" some big urban project realization because modern city couldn't bear for long the huge void of function and meaning such a place like Kneiphof now is. But having no idea to just reprogram or reload landscape of this unique area or to restore its historical image (recovery of facades out of cultural and historical environment would be not more than decorative) let's look at the place in some wider historical scale.

Geographical, historical and geological understanding of Kneiphof Island is based on the concept of the river Pregel, whose origins lie in the East of modern Kaliningrad Area and also in Poland at the region of Masurian Lakes. Pregel is formed with confluence of Angrapa and Instruch rivers. Angrapa which originates in Lake Mamre in its turn is fed by the rivers Piss, GOŁDAP and Vika, coming from the lakes Red (Lake Goldap) and Vištytis or Vishtynets. These lakes are of glacial origin, as well as the Baltic Sea, formed as a result of further retreat movement of glacier and its melting about 10-14 thousand years ago, that is about 10 thousand years later than formation of mentioned glacial lakes. From this point of view Pregel with its tributaries is a very unhurried by human standards story in ten thousand years, which a long disappeared Valdai glacier tells over 300 kilometers on the territory of modern Kaliningrad Area and the island Kneiphof is the last river island on Pregel divided into two sleeves near Gvardeysk town, the last island before the river mouth. Connecting first before the island, the Old and New Pregel come beyond it into a single channel. In this sense, "Pregelmunde" (Mouth of Pregel) can be regarded not so much as an alternative historical name, giving in the 14th century its place to name Kneiphof but as the key to the interpretation of the island on the basis of historical and geological representation and the way to the philosophical park's concept. Pregelmunde - this is the last island of the interior space, last chord, which takes the river before its waters flow in the Vistula (Kaliningrad) Bay and then into the Baltic Sea. Obviously, the German words Mündung - mouth and Mund - lips, mouth etymologically related as well as corresponding Russian words Уста and Устье. Speech uttered by the mouth, becomes the language of knowledge and the language of creation , a basis for communication and some battery for human selfrepresentations expressed primarily in philosophy. Likewise, Kneiphof being considered through or as Pregelmunde is a place where the story of Pregel achieves its goal finding its own voice. But this voice had been just a chthonic voice of melting ice expressing wild natural power of the Earth, until the ancestors of modern people living on this land heard it's call and founded their settlements here mixing their speech and their history with the sound of the rushing waters as many folks and tribes did all over the globe. Jawaharlal Nehru, in his classic work of 1946 "Discovering India" wrote about the river Ganges (where Indian Mahatmas of ancient times once taught аbout dualistic nature of the world pointing to the separation of Ganges' channel and further confluence of these two streams): "Ganges, to a greater extent than the other rivers of India, kept the country's heart and attracted to its shores countless millions of people since ancient times. History of the Ganges from the source to the sea, from antiquity to the present day is the history of civilization and culture of India, the origin and fall of empires, great and proud cities, of adventures of man ...”. Such a concept of the philosophical park "Pregelmunde" suggests that leaving aside a history of Kneiphof settlement we could give some opportunity to development of parallel place's history in the forms of philosophical park based on the image of speech and language as powerful tools of philosophical thinking in particular and the primary means of social communication in general. Here after Rilke quoted in epigraph (WIR SIND NUR MUND - We are only mouth) we can trace and consider how like a river that flows through its mouth into the sea, a man comes to revelation of his own historical essence through the speech.

SECTION A Philosophical park on Kneiphof Island

*Extract from the section by Katerina Cherevko

Semantic and spatial concept of the Philosophical Park* In the contemporary world, there are no philosophical parks existing today as an individual kind of landscape design. In different periods of time parks were created for seclusion and meditation. By emphasizing their owner’s fortune, artistic taste and intellect they often became a mark of distinction. Conventionally speaking, the gardens of antique philosophers Academy and Lyceum in Ancient Greece can be called the first philosophical parks. According to the legend the garden of Academy was founded by Plato on the site of a sacral grove where an archaic hero Academos was buried.

Mythological definition of a garden space Myths of different nations contain the idea of a Garden located either at the world’s end or on an isolated ISLAND, where immortality giving fruit trees grow. This is an utopian idea of a blessed holy land. Myths about such gardens refer to magical numerology (e.g. the number of trees), sacred colors (e.g. in gardens of Hsi Wang Mu (in Chinese mythology)), exclusively white feathered birds and animals with white fur. These gardens have only the most precious metals and stones (for example nephrite and gold). Furthermore, these gardens are very difficult to get into. Xi Wang Mu, (“Godmother of the West”), owner of the heavenly garden with peach trees of immortality. Decor on a Qing dynasty porcelain plate, Yongzheng Emperor period, 1725

Semantics of gardens and parks If to undertake an attempt to generalize the main semantic ideas in garden planning over the entire historical period, the outcome will be as follows: 1) the idea of a garden as Paradise, Eden, an enclosed protected space, a different world, existing in accordance with its rules, inhabited by outlandish birds and animals, an afterworld where immortality or youth granting trees grow; 2) the idea of a garden as a Book, a holy text which is only available for initiates to read; and 3) a Garden as a model of the Universe, the whole cosmic world order. Persian garden of “Paradise”. Image on a carpet. The so-called “garden carpet” – a kind of Persian carpet design. Isfahan, 17-18th century. The rug precisely replicated design of “the garden of pleasures” with irrigation canals, trees, flower beds and garden walks, laid out according to the four cardinal directions. The first similar carpet is known as of the reign of Sassanid Dynasty (531- 579 AD), its area was 60 m2

Concept of the Philosophical Park Problem and current situation If we had a task to come up with an idea for the Philosophical Park of Peter the Great times or the period after his reign, it would likely have been a regular park with strict geometry of alleys. On each side of the alleys, there would have been sculpture images, allegories of one or another philosophical category and for example half-rotundas with the centrally placed sculptural busts of the most famous thinkers of different times, starting from the ancient. It could be possible to imagine that we would have received an image resembling existing magnificent palace architectural and park ensembles similar to Versailles, the park in Tsarskoye Selo, the park at Oranienbaum or Letny Sad (Summer Garden) in Saint Petersburg. However, an expert on garden and park semantics Dmitry Likhachev wrote: “A garden always expresses some philosophy, aesthetic ideas about the world, human attitude towards nature; this is a micro world in its ideal representation”. This tells us that it is necessary to think about the inner world of modern man, his knowledge, ability to “read” the message communicated by a garden and park ensemble in one or another form. In his book “Poetry of gardens”, D.S. Likhachev also wrote: ‘The loss of ability “to read” gardens as iconological systems and perceive them in the light of “aesthetic climate” of the era of their creation, is related to the dramatic decline (during approximately the last hundred years) in the ability of iconological perceptions and rudiments of knowledge of traditional symbols and emblems in general”. Examples of randomly placed compositions in the space of the contemporary park “The perception of the iconological system in gardens is especially complicated because in gardens more often than in other arts secret symbolism and iconological systems are hidden”. Therefore, it appears to be unreasonable to reckon upon the world of an educated man from the Renaissance, the Baroque or the Romantic when thinking about the image of the contemporary park. Thus, the semantic structure of the contemporary park shall be based on the pattern of thoughts and knowledge of the contemporary educated man. When thinking about what the philosophical park is, we have arrived at an idea that main function of such a park for philosophers and usual visitors should be immersion in meditation. On the one hand, due to the alternation of different landscape structures and their harmonious organization (ponds, slight uplifting or lowering of the landscape, planting arrangements), the organized change of visual impressions, the absence of discordant elements, dominant flowing lines open to the eye at a single glance and

perspectives leading the eye toward the immense landscape, any park space switches a visitor to a different mindset and stimulates slower deliberate, a kind of a distant way of thinking. To comply with this strategy we could turn exclusively to the tools of a landscape architect and designer. However we have a task to come up with a concept of the Philosophical Park, which implies an extra focus on the philosophical aspect. At present, the layout of alleys of Kneiphof Island (Kant Island) has a thought-out geometry: there is a distinguished main axis, a central alley, from which narrow alleys radiate diagonally. Since it is designed to lay a new street connecting the Entrails and Blacksmith Bridges to be reconstructed and to restore the building of the town hall, the location of the diagonal alleys comes in discordance as to the overall composition of all architectural elements and existing provisional zones of the park. At present, Kant Island is called the park of sculptures. There have been provisionally defined some zones hosting busts and sculptures by different artists in accordance with a specific theme. For example, there are portrait busts, including the portrait of Yury Gagarin, along of the alleys located near the Estacada Bridge. Over the years, some of sculptures have been lost (stolen) or partially damaged. The overall composition of the existing layout of sculptures on the island leaves much to be desired. The tablets with inscriptions are missing near the sculptures. Some of the sculptures by unknown creators look like a memory of the long gone ideology of communism. In the overall park ensemble, some of sculptures seem to be randomly and poorly located in terms of composition, as for example the monument to Maxim Gorky. In terms of composition, trees are not always well arranged on the island either: the trees are mainly located along the alleys and along the perimeter of the park, but there are also some isolated trees of various species that do not create any clear compositional groups as for example in the extreme end of the island facing westward (the sport complex Yunost). This is why we consider it important to engage some landscape architects to make planting in some places more densely, particularly where the lines of planting framing the island or individual green areas are discontinued and a certain rhythm is missing. It would be also good to

diversify the species composition with regard to the semantics of the philosophical park (now the tree planting mainly consists of chestnut and linden).

Concept of the Philosophical Park Semantics of the island location The green area of the park looks currently as a precinct due to tree planting along the perimeter of the park. Trees (mostly chestnuts) are about 60 years old (according to approximate estimations), demonstrating the viability of existing plantations and no need to remove them for sanitary or aesthetic purposes. The trees planted along the perimeter of the park correspond to the idea of a garden as a guarded precinct mentioned in the above examples (a historical background). The insular location of the park correlates, in an interesting way, with the above concept of a paradise garden, located on an island (the island of HXi Wang Mu, the island of Avalon, the island of Sid, the Islands of Blessed and the Islands of Eternal Youth). The Pregolya river arms skirting around the island correlated with the observation about the Ganges, where the river branches run apart in order to reunite similarly to the duality of the world. The above said implies that the selection based only on geographical prerequisites makes it already impossible to find any better place for the Philosophical Park in Kaliningrad Region.

If the central location of the island on the map of Kaliningrad is provisionally referred to the idea of the ancient people about the search for the center of the World, the hub of the universe, the central axis (which, according to many versions of myths, is continued by the World Tree (a mythological archetype, the universal tree uniting all spheres of macrocosm. As a rule, its branches are associated with the heaven, its trunk – with the earth, roots – with the underworld.)), it turns out that on the map of Kaliningrad, it is difficult to find any other better place for searching for connections with the Higher Mind and for addressing it. Furthermore, we already know that the island is a burial ground for philosopher Immanuel Kant. Thus, if we recall the above mentioned garden of Academy where Plato was buried and his followers had been practicing rhetoric, the idea to lay out a philosophical park on Kant Island will be considered as a tribute to the philosophical tradition.

Concept of the Philosophical Park Fundamental idea

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Legend Main Building of Museum complex Green area of Philosophical park Kuznechny (Blacksmith) Bridge Potrokhovy (Entrails) Bridge Pedestrian zone along the trajectory of historical streets on the level of pediment (exposing survived and recreated paving) Junker garden (lowered embankment functioning as a berth)

This approach involves the implementation of the idea of “scanning” the objects in the park space, reading of the “text” of park items as a Book, which has a historical justification (described above). In philosophy, 6 each new trend or a new school forms a new view of the perception of ontological issues. A visitor who comes to the park has been informed that he is supposed to look for the points which can be designated as “assemblage points”. This process is similar to the one when philosophy searches for answers to fundamental questions, proposing a new conceptual toolkit, offering new perspectives on Time, Space and Being. Each group of objects located on a certain axis may be united by some introduced idea about a philosophical category. Each group of Area of the Philosophical Park objects should be elaborated, conceived and Axes along which located in space by one sculptures are located author (a sculptor or an artist) or a team of authors. Approximate locations of Statuary may sequentially sculptures appear in the space of the Museum complex “Kant Museum and Philosophical Park” on the Island of Kneiphof Point for a viewer to park, on one axis after Site plan on the combined contemporary and historical underlay see the whole another (except for Scale 1:2000 conception intersecting ones). If we assume that the island has a workshop or an art-residence for the group of invited artists or sculptors from other countries, or other cities of Russia, statuary could

appear in line with the preliminary set work schedule of artists and sculptors, for example within one-two years (considering the most favorable time for work is a warm season (April – October). For sculptors, who will be invited to the art-residence, it will be necessary to elaborate the philosophical texts to be “incorporated in the space” of the park. Each time sculptors together with landscape architects and designers should, in their own way, play around with the gradients for this zone of the park; “adjust” the shapes of the tree groups, framing those park zones where sculptures will be located.

Philosophical Park Zoning layout Scale 1 : 2000

No 1 2 3 4 5

Legend Functional zones of the park Western coastal area Lavochnaya (Merchant) zone Kuznechnaya (Blacksmith) zone Ratushnaya (Town Hall) zone Medovaya (Honey) zone

Area 4330 m² 14920 m² 9240 m² 5530 m² 19670 m²

Total:

53690 m²