Cultivating Value: Teaching a Job and Mitigating Climate Change Effects While Restoring a Landscape Heritage
Cultivating Value: Teaching a Job and Mitigating Climate Change Effects While Restoring a Landscape Heritage
PDFAuthors: Paola Branduini
Volume/Issue: Volume 27: Issue 1
Published online: 23 Apr 2024
Pages: 55 - 62
Abstract
In the degraded peri-urban areas, there are several traces of the agrarian landscape heritage: they are not relicts of the past but a resource for managing water, providing fauna and flora biodiversity, and mitigate climate change in the urban environment. A pilot experience of recovering the Milan medieval water meadows has been done in the last two years: the aim was to provide a new job to fragile people, while restoring an ancient landscape. The tangible permanencies have been recovered by unemployed people at the same time as the traditional art of managing water has been taught by ancient watermen. A course has been organized to transfer the knowledge. Several schools have been involved in the practical recovery of artifacts: students enjoyed to care an “ordinary” heritage in their neighbourhood, as a resource for a sustainable way of living, and a good quality landscape. The high social and cultural value provided increased Municipality’s attention to consider a joint management with the social cooperative of this productive landscape and to include didactical visit to water meadow in each student curricula.
Keywords: periurban landscape, rural heritage, urban agriculture, tangible heritage, intangible heritage
References
Branduini, P., Laviscio, R., Scazzosi, L., Supuka, J., & Toth, A. (2016). Urban agriculture and cultural heritage: an historical and spatial relationship. In F. Lohrberg, L.Licka, L. Scazzosi, A. Timpe, (eds.) Urban Agriculture Europe (pp. 138–147) Jovis.
Branduini, P. Laviscio, R., & Scazzosi, L. (2020). AgriCulture in Milan. The mutual benefit between urban agriculture and cultural heritage. In L. Scazzosi, P. Branduini, (eds.) AgriCultura: Urban Agriculture and the Heritage Potential of Agrarian Landscape (pp. 245–161). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49012-6_15
Egoz, S., Jorgensen, K., & Ruggeri, D. (2018). Defining Landscape Democracy. A Path to Spatial Justice. E. Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2021.1964221
ICOMOS. (2019). The Future of Our Pasts: Engaging Cultural Heritage in Climate Action. ICOMOS. https://openarchive.icomos.org/id/eprint/2459
Olwig, K. R. (2007). The practice of landscape ‘Conventions’ and the just landscape: the case of the European landscape convention. Landscape Research, 32(5), 579–594. https://doi.org/10.1080/01426390701552738
Scazzosi, L. (2018). Landscape as Systems of Tangible and Intangible Relationships. Small Theoretical and Methodological Introduction to Read and Evaluate Rural Landscape as Heritage. In E. Rosina, L. Scazzosi, (eds.) The Conservation and Enhancement of Built and Landscape Heritage (pp. 19–40). PoliScript.
Scazzosi, L. (2020). Urban agriculture as heritage. Methodological issues and perspectives. In L. Scazzosi, P. Branduini, (eds.) AgriCultura: Urban Agriculture and the Heritage Potential of Agrarian Landscape (pp. 17–44). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49012-6_2