Green

A glimpse of Forgotten Landscape, an installation by German landscape architect Cassian Schmidt who, last September, recreated the forest of Lombardy’s rivers in Piazza Vecchia, Bergamo, during the I Maestri del Paesaggio 2022 festival. Plants by Vivai Valfredda, trees by Coplant. Partners: Panariagroup, Pedrali, Mapei, Simes. imaestridelpaesaggio.it

M a s t e r o f l a n d s c a p e

“Designing an ‘urban jungle’ doesn’t just mean decorating the city, but counteracting the effects of climate change”. The renowned landscape designer of international fame, Cassian Schmidt, explains to us

by Gaetano Zoccali

Hermannshof research garden in Weinheim

Munich school campus Hermannshof in Weinheim (Frankfurt) — Above, the research garden directed by Cassian Schmidt. Here the vegetation is organised in habitats modelled on North American prairies. Its biodiversity makes it resistant to climatic stress. Munich — Left, the park of the school campus not far from the city created by Schmidt in cooperation with Kübert Landscape Architecture. The plant choice favours masses of herbaceous perennials, with yellow Rudbeckia, orange Helianthus and copper-coloured grasses such as Panicum and Miscanthus. Augsburg — In the German city’s Sheridan Park, the dense birch forest, below, bordered by a winding footpath, was inspired by a study on the forests of Aspen, in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

Sheridan Park in Augsburg

German landscape architect Cassian Schmidt, director of the Schau und Sichtungsgarten Hermannshof garden near Frankfurt, where he studies plants with which to design urban greenery that conveys an idea of controlled wildness. He is the author of the Piazza Verde 2022 in Bergamo together with Landscape Design students from the University of Weihenstephan-Triesdorf. sichtungsgarten-hermannshof.de A wood of willows with soft grasses, fragrant wild figs and industrious bees took up residence, last September, at Piazza Vecchia in Bergamo, with a surprising effect. “This is not just beautifying the city but finding a sustainable solution to mitigate the effects of climate change”, explains the designer of the green project, world-renowned German landscape architect Cassian Schmidt. In a protected historical context — “You can’t even touch a stone because it would be a crime”, said Le Corbusier — Schmidt has recreated what he himself defines as “the last European jungle”, showing an example of the few strips of woodland surviving along riverbanks in Lombardy. We met him in his garden, a manifesto created for the 12th edition of I Maestri del Paesaggio (The Masters of Landscape) the most important Italian festival dedicated to landscape design, promoted by the association Arketipos and the Municipality of Bergamo and entitled “Forgotten Landscapes”. “Forgotten landscapes also include those habitats to be protected, whose beauty we ignore, such as the floodplain woodlands [the interface between land and a watercourse] of the River Po to which I wanted to give visibility”. The leader of the movement called New German Style designed this project together with Aurelia Ibach, Verena Hurler, Fabiola Leonett von Wachter and Simon Schwar, students at the German University of Applied Sciences in WeihenstephanTriesdorf, who won the competition for the concept of the project. Over seven thousand plants were selected, 80% of which belong to native species. For the audience of public administrators who attended Schmidt’s lectio magistralis, it was a real lesson for the future. For thirty years, in fact, the landscape architect — director of the Hermannshof research garden in Weinheim, near Frankfurt — has been studying new combinations of sustainable plants for urban environments inspired by natural habitats. “Biodiversity must find space in the city, because in addition to creating beauty, it performs strategic functions ranging from reducing temperatures and pollution to encouraging sociality, generating civic sense”, in line with the objectives of the 2030 agenda of the United Nations. “I study wild environments and then develop plant communities that I like to call “horticultural ecosystems”. Spontaneous species and resilient ornamental varieties live together in these modules that successfully thrive without irrigation or fertilisation. Biodiversity is our best ally for enhancing the quality of a place and reducing maintenance normally required by green areas. Therefore, it is no longer necessary to think in terms of individual plants, but of plant communities in a project. Accepting the idea that flora is not always in bloom, but that it evolves from year to year, generating continuous surprises”, Schmidt explains. “The difference between my approach and that of the English school is precisely this: I talk about dynamic environments, where plants are spontaneously redistributed over time within an area, and I ask gardeners to support natural processes”. The outcome is surprising because this reduces the costs for municipalities. “In Europe, creating and maintaining a square metre of greenery, using traditional methods, costs on average 47.8 euros per year and requires 20 minutes of maintenance. With my dynamic communities, costs are reduced to 7.2 euros per year and 5 minutes work”. Ecological and economic sustainability have squared the circle. —