Kaupunkiluonto

The City beautiful planning thread as perfected or perverted in the embodiment of Daniel Burnham containing civic centres, large parks and large boulevards was modified into City practical planning by such planners as Charles Mulford Robinson (1869-1917), John Nolen (1869-1937) and Frederick Law Olmsted junior (1870-1957) with more concern to sanitary, social and health issues, housing conditions and traffic (Krueckeberg 1983, 280). Nolen, influenced by the Garden City ideals, maintained that the City beautification methods applied by his contemporaries were fatal. Instead he stressed social problems which were overlooked by the City Beautiful movement, suggesting that an adequate amount of open spaces to guarantee daily exercise was essential, and not only large city parks were sufficient for this but an easy enough access for everyone to local recreation areas had to be secured, thinking with Olmsted junior cities as complexes of interrelated neighbourhood parks (ibid., 72-98). In th...

During the second half of the 19th century, the rapid industrialisation brought about a rapid urbanisation. In the process, the urban environment went through a profound change, the over-population bringing about restlessness, poverty and crime. It soon became evident that the needs of city-habitants had to be met, those needs being not only vocational and residential. The cities had become “too big, too polluted, too built up, too crowded, too diseased, too polluted, too artificial, too commercial, too corrupting and too stressful” (Cranz 1982, 3). Horrified by these circumstances escalated in the growing cities, the protagonists of the City Beautiful movement stressed the needs to create the urban environment more pleasant by providing sufficiently open, green areas for the city dwellers. These areas were meant to regulate the morale of the city-habitants by refreshing them and providing them with beauties of nature. In 1870 Frederick Law Olmsted published an article "Public Par...

The word "park" can refer to various things, but it always suggests a green open space of some kind, with turf and trees (Olmsted & Kimball 1928, 3). Medieval monastery gardens of the 9th and 10th century France can be called as predecessors of public parks, not only chronologically but also in their purpose as they were meant to provide a place for self-restoration and for moral improvement for the monks working there (Sennett 1994, 183-184), those also being the justification arguments of the later public parks. Cloister sanctuaries were tied symbolically and practically to the veneration of the Nature, specifically to creating and maintaining the garden contained within the cloister's walls. Christian meditation set in the cloister garden drew upon the imagery of the Garden of Eden, which set the scene for thinking about the human self-destructiveness that led to Adam and Eve's expulsion from the garden. For the monks who first dwelt in rural sanctuaries, tendi...

Frederick Law Olmsted represents a turning point in understanding shifting interpretations of the American landscape and its relationship to nature. In his work, the natural become from an antidote to urban life to an essential ingredient of the city. (Mugenauer 1995, 103.) The Christian based tradition understanding nature interpreted the nature as an earthly paradise given by its holy creator and as a site for enhancing human moral. Olmsted contributed significantly to develop the scientific approach to environmental planning, where human well-being played a central role. (ibid., 92-93.) In the early 19th century, the idea of nature was of unspoiled kind, the human mind and spirit being uplifted, refreshed and enhanced by its encounter with the nature (Fabos et al 1968, 10). The Arcadian myth of idolising the simple, content pastoral people influenced greatly in the late 19th century American planners (Tobey 1973, 171). Olmsted was well steeped into Christian tradition of understandi...

What is a park? What are the necessary minimum conditions for a park? Which kind of functions it is about to serve? According to a simplification by Cranz, there are three basic visions of parks, their functions and their onthology. A naive vision of park implies that they are mere plots of (unused) and thus preserved land, being manifestations of democracy as they are free for anyone. Parks can be considered works of art, aesthetic objects. Then, parks can be containers of moral and social (reformist) ideals, as the case was with the idealist ideology behind the Olmsted Central Park in New York. (Cranz 1982, 253.) According to Jacobs, the four elements essential to successful public parks are those of intricacy, centering, sun and enclosure. By intricacy Jacobs means the principle of multiple use: parks should be used by different persons, for different purposes and at different times. Even the same user might use the park for different purposes at different times. By centering Jacobs...

By being out in the open air, a citizen, the president Thomas Jefferson said, breathes free: he applied this metaphor to the countryside, which he loved (Sennett 1994, 270). From cities´ point of view, the function of parks is integrative. Parks are – according to Cranz – historically, politically and aesthetically integrative (Cranz 1982, 248-249). According to Lefebvre (1996, 147), the citizens of cities have several social needs in respect to cities. These needs are conceptualised in dialectic form, and they include: - need for security/opening - need for certainty/adventure - need for the predictable and the unpredictable - need of similarity/difference - need of isolation/encounter - need of independence (solitude)/communication - need of immediate/long-term prospects - need for creative activity; the need for information, symbolism, the imaginery and plan o play, sexuality, physical activities (e.g.sport), creative activity, art, knowledge These urban needs can not be reduced int...

The version of spring 2008 of the research proposal for my doctoral thesis   Chapter 1: The Right to Urban Parks What is a park? What is an urban park? What is its function, definition and for what it is being used? Why urban parks? For which purposes have they been created, by whom and for whom? In order to understand the function of urban parks and the relationship between nature and urbanity, work of the founder of the landscape architecture and park planner, Frederick Law Olmsted is studied. I will study definitions of various forms of parks in the urban context and the history of parks. As there hardly is a one all-embracing definition of their onthology and function, the existence, definition and parks has been a cause for struggle. Who “owns” the parks? Are they a public good or a luxury? Who use them, for what, when and with whom? Where do the park users live? Are the parks there to be admired, aesthetic objects or do they serve functions for the city? My central focus will...