Urban Parks

"This paper examines new initiatives in the development of sports and leisure activities in urban parks in Manchester during the interwar years. Parks were an important and popular arena for recreation in this period but were facing increasing competition from private leisure facilities such as cinemas, music and dance halls and theatres.
The challenge for parks was how to predict future trends and accommodate newer sporting facilities such as open-air baths and running tracks without detracting from existing provision like bowling and golf. Many new initiatives were short-lived such as dancing and costume concert parties in parks. The leisure audience was now fickle, difficult to read and increasingly discerning.
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"1a
The title of this project refers to the geographical area in Rome, the Campo Marzio (Latin: “Campus Martius”). This was the designated military grounds outside of the city limits predating the Imperial and Late Republican era of Roman antiquity.
As the old city expanded beyond the limits of the Pomerium, the area became its centre and, to this day, is loaded with iconic works and archaeological traces from the antique world, including the Pantheon, Piazza Navona (a planometric tracing of the Stadium of Domitian), and various Egyptian obelisks.
Since antiquity the district has been in a state of perpetual rebuilding and layering, adding an abundance of public space (in the form of piazzas and public buildings) to the city (a circular sample area with a 1km diameter, taken by the authors of this project, reveals an 8.3% surface area of dedicated, exposed public space in the Campo Marzio). It is the quintessential urban district; one filled with public rooms of all scales which lead, from one to another, as a continuous connective fabric.
1b
The title of this project refers to the frontispiece image from Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s 1762 work, “Il Campo Marzio dell’antica Roma.” In it, Piranesi layers urban fantasy with typological invention in a pseudo-historical collage of the Campo Marzio area of Rome. Referencing the planometric arsenal of ancient Roman architecture, Piranesi constructs an otherworldly image of the Campo Marzio, indicating a few real architectural elements rooted in the period from which he draws. These elements, amidst a field of invention, give geographical bearing and a ghostly sense of reality to this utopian vision of the ancient city.
1c
From the allusions conjured by the title of this project, one could gather that this design for a new park in the Ostiense district might have something to do with urban rooms, an otherworldly vision of public space and the city, typological appropriation, and the thrust by which a formerly peripheral district becomes central to the city it was once only attached to."

H παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία επιχειρεί να προσδιορίσει αν, και σε ποιο βαθμό, η αξία ενός περιβαλλοντικού αγαθού -και ειδικότερα των χώρων πράσινου σε μητροπολιτικά περιβάλλοντα- είναι ευαίσθητη στις διακυμάνσεις της οικονομίας και αν επηρεάζεται από τις μεταβολές στο εισόδημα των χρηστών τους. Ως ένδειξη χρησιμοποιείται  η όποια διαφορά στην αποδιδόμενη αξία των χώρων πρασίνου του Λεκανοπεδίου Αττικής στις σημερινές συνθήκες της Ελληνικής οικονομίας σε σχέση με την αντίστοιχη αποδιδόμενη αξία κατά την κορύφωση του προηγούμενου οικονομικού κύκλου.

Australian cities exhibit a quality of life arguably among the best in the world, but rapidly expanding populations may soon threaten this status. The burgeoning conurbation of South East Queensland (SEQ) is an example. Recent growth management policies and plans (e.g. South East Queensland Regional Plan and local authority growth management strategies) have sought to curtail urban sprawl through urban footprints, growth management boundaries, urban consolidation, and other measures. The ‘density imperative’ presented by these collective urban policies affects the sourcing, provision and management of open space in inner-city locales in SEQ which may soon run out of land for parks and urban greenspace. This paper presents results from recent research into the environmental equity dimensions of providing urban greenspace in SEQ. Critiquing the long-entrenched parks-standards approach, the paper offers a ‘needs-based’ alternative, and considers its utility for SEQ and other fast-growing Australian urban areas. Questioning orthodox planning perspectives about who lives in higher density areas, we argue that local and state governments should look towards a variety of new types of green and open space to meet the needs of existing and future residents living in denser built environments.

""The reasons for proposing a London 2012 bid are outlined in the light of London city planning over the past sixty years. The processes influencing the bid for the London 2012 Olympics are
investigated in respect of the lessons from Barcelona and Sydney. The role of environmental and landscape improvement is examined and the importance of legacy is described and analysed. The cost of Olympiads since Sydney 2000 are described and compared. Then progress of the London 2012 Olympics development is described relative to regeneration of East London. Finally the effects of current proposals to cut back the costs of the 2012 Olympics are considered. Olympic Games play significant roles in host city’s economy as well as other outcomes such as tourism, culture, unemployment, infrastructure. However the economy can never describe the whole picture of Olympic Games’ gainnings, it is one of the most significant sign before, during and after the event. All of the expenditures have different values at different legacy levels. Although post election budget cut-backs in the United Kingdom have placed a question mark on the costs; the proposed urban legacy is to make the city beautiful and London East End livable.""

This paper examines the transition from the Victorian to the Edwardian municipal park in Manchester. It focuses on the acquisition and development of the 650 acre Heaton Park by Manchester City Council during the years 1902 – 1912. It argues that the purchase of the park marked the transition from the Victorian idea of parks as improving spaces for ‘rational recreation’ to the Edwardian idea that parks offered spaces for many diverse activities centred around active citizenship and social responsibility. Although this represented a re-framing of many Victorian ideas about leisure, it also resulted in a redefinition of the role of a municipal park in the Edwardian city. It is this redefinition which forms the focus for this paper.

Social network sites are the new urban parks where people congregate, socialize and exercise leisure. Its web architectures however are being walled in, dictated by market systems and State ideologies. These cyber-enclosures are justified along the lines of privacy that garners protection, efficiency and functionality. There is significant concern for the potential irrevocable loss of the ‘public’ and ‘open’ character intended of internet infrastructures, fearing the fostering of social segregation, homogenization and corporatization of leisure and a loss of civic sense. This paper addresses these concerns by looking at contemporary material architectures that are shaping public social and leisure space, particularly gardens within gated communities and malls. It argues that for a comprehensive understanding on privacy and public leisure architectures, we need to recognize the parallels between these virtual and material spheres as social norms, values and laws permeate these boundaries.

"Conventional wisdom proclaims many simplistic explanations for the creation and design of public parks in late nineteenth-century Britain. Perhaps the most common is that parks were essentially compensatory landscapes that atoned for the sins of the cities that surrounded them. In a purely topographical sense this claim has some validity, as parks provided a spatial interruption to the sprawl of regimented terraced housing. However, when we venture into individual parks created during this period, we encounter highly complex environments that celebrated rather than denounced the materials, scale, and socio-economic conditions of the industrial age. Using examples taken from the West Midlands, this paper examines the manner in which the aesthetics and architecture of public parks were informed by the principles and processes of industrial production.

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"L’oeuvre de Frederick Law Olmsted, le premier et le
plus célèbre des architectes-paysagistes américains,
demeure paradoxalement mal connue. Prolifique et
protéiforme, elle est trop souvent éclipsée par sa
réalisation phare, qui en offre pourtant une vision
réductrice : l’immense parc urbain de Central Park à
New York.
Le présent ouvrage se propose de revisiter le parcours
tortueux d’Olmsted, d’en démêler les ressorts, aussi
bien intellectuels et esthétiques que politiques et
économiques, et d’en dégager les cohérences, par delà
son évident éclectisme. En partie déterminée par
l’impératif pécunier, sa carrière connut de nombreux
aléas : tour à tour fermier et horticulteur passionné
d’agriculture scientifique, journaliste et écrivain
voyageur, éditeur, maître d’oeuvre et chef de chantier à
la tête de plusieurs milliers d’hommes, et même
directeur de la plus grosse mine d’or de Californie, il
s’accommoda finalement du titre de landscape
architect, qui ne lui plaisait guère et ne reflète qu’en
partie son champ d’activité.
Les recherches récentes dans les domaines de l’histoire
urbaine et environnementale, de l’histoire de l’art et de
la théorie esthétique permettent d’éclairer les réalisations paysagères d’un jour nouveau : au delà de
la reproduction d’une esthétique anglaise, pastorale ou pittoresque, Olmsted, véritable urbaniste
avant la lettre, chercha à faire oeuvre d’aménagement du territoire et ce, à toutes les échelles —
parcs urbains, réserves naturelles, voies de circulation et d’accès, banlieues résidentielles et campus
universitaires. Son cheminement intellectuel, nourri d’expériences et de lectures multiples, permet
de replacer ces réalisations au centre d’une réflexion plus vaste sur démocratie et barbarie,
esclavagisme et capitalisme, villes et campagnes, récréation touristique et préservation de la nature
« sauvage »."

"""The present article represents a quite literal take on the theme of the special issue of Australian Feminist Law Journal in which it appears by discussing the public park as a garden of justice: on the one hand a concrete, geographical setting in which law and morality become manifest, on the other hand the site of a more intangible space which is constituted by the struggles between different spatial definitions. The article focuses on the case of Ørstedsparken in Copenhagen, a well-known cruising site where bi- and homosexual men have been meeting up to have sex for more than a century. In response to this use of the park, in recent years the municipality of Copenhagen has cut down vegetation in the park in order to expose (and thereby attempt to prevent) these activities. In doing so, the authorities attempt to reclaim the contested public space of the park and return it to a site of order (law) and potential justice.

This reaction can be related to Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos’ notion of spatial justice, which sees the need for withdrawal from the space one occupies as essential, and to the problems related to several agents laying claim to the same space at the same time. The article also proposes that the desire to expose those who retreat to public parks to have sex may in part be a result of the hiddenness of the people who engage in these activities, since this represents a space which can be perceived as extralegal in a formal sense. Further, in connection with this discussion, the article also considers the informal implications that this specific use of the park as a homosexual cruising site has on the perception of safety and – by extension – law and suggests that unlike many other types of illegal activities, the use of parks as cruising sites means that they in some cases come to be seen as safer recreational areas for women than other parks, because the male homosexual use is perceived as precluding other types of illicit activity (e.g. heterosexual rape, robbery, drug dealing).

The article also addresses the fact that while the cutting of bushes can be seen as a physical manifestation of the presence of law, the specific targeting of this homosexual cruising site may point to a moral aspect of justice. Given that it is no longer possible to suggest the removal of homosexual desire in people, the cutting down of bushes at gay cruising sites could be interpreted as a surrogate way of imposing moral law upon those who fall outside of heteronormativity. This argument is underpinned by an analysis of the debate and critique of the sexual activities in the park in the media which seems to move not primarily on the level of legality, but on that of morality and justice.

The article ends with an analysis of a sign stipulating the conditions of the use of Ørstedsparken as a cruising site, which was placed at the gates of the park in April 2012. The sign is analysed and related to the struggle for spatial definition and the notion of spatial justice."""

"RESUMEN

El crecimiento de Bogotá durante el siglo XX estuvo vinculado a un proceso de modernización tanto del espacio urbano como de las costumbres, las prácticas y la mentalidad de los ciudadanos. Dentro de este panorama, una mirada a la relación entre el Estado, las élites y los ciudadanos a través del espacio público del Parque Nacional Enrique Olaya Herrera nos permite acercarnos al significado de los parques para una ciudad en transformación y para las personas que los usaban. A través de la revisión de la historia del Parque en sus primeros años de existencia (1938-1948) se revelan dos aspectos importantes del sentido de estos espacios urbanos en Bogotá. Primero, éstos hacen parte de un proyecto modernizador agenciado por las élites, que tomó forma propia al entrar en contacto con los ciudadanos. Segundo, hay una distancia entre el concepto de ciudad de los planificadores y las prácticas urbanas de los usuarios del parque, que muestran la dinámica de las relaciones de la gente con y en el espacio urbano, así como su influencia sobre las ideas y discursos hegemónicos.

PALABRAS CLAVES
Historia urbana, Bogotá, vida cotidiana, espacio público, política cultural, parques.

FREE TIME OUTDOORS. SOCIAL PRACTICES, PUBLIC SPACE AND NATURE AT THE ENRIQUE OLAYA HERRERA NATIONAL PARK (1938-1948)

ABSTRACT

The growth of Bogotá during the 20th century was tied to process of modernizing urban space as well as the customs, social practices and mentality of the public. In order to understand the meaning of parks in the transformation of the city, this article examines the relationship between the state, elites and citizens in the public space of the Enrique Olaya Herrera National Park. Reviewing the early years of this park (1938-1948) reveals two important notions regarding urban parks in Bogotá: First, although they were part of a modernization project directed by local elites, these parks took on a life of their own once they were opened to the public. Second, there was a gap between the concept that planners had of the city and the urban practices of the people who used them. This gap shows that the public's relation with urban space is dynamic and that their daily practices can affect ideas and hegemonic discourses.

KEYWORDS
Urban history, Bogotá, everyday life, public space, cultural politics, parks. Artículo recibido el 16 de febrero de 2006 y aprobado el 21 de septiembre de 2006. "