Landscape – Great Idea! X-LArch III - Department für Raum ...

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systematic application of certain practices adopted in
Europe, but which also represent three levels of “knowledge”
in the assessment process, i.e. three degrees of
closeness to the construction of shared actions regarding
the landscape. This method is outlined in the table below
which compares the three types of values identified (column)
with the three knowledge/assessment approaches
(line), highlighted by the cases examined and which are
referred to in the ELC Recommendation (2008). This
matrix makes it possible to define the way in which each
type of value contributes to the process of identification,
interpretation and social legitimization, useful for
constructing landscape enhancement actions and for
defining actions shared with the populations.
In fact, this process permits:
• identification i.e. recognition of values for knowledge/diffusion
of local identity; the process
implies interpretation of physical-natural identity
values such as the mountains, historical-cultural
and settlement aspects such as the villages
and historical centres and also local traditions.
These values are relatively easy to recognise and
express as they readily perceived “frequenting“
the territory surveyed and can be expressed
by appraisers-experts through discussion with
a cross-section of the local population (such
as institutions, associations, etc.). Regulative
values (universal, specific to national cultures,
to local cultures, to each individual’s culture) are
easily recognised according to knowledge of the
historical-cultural, natural and landscape assets to
which restrictions are already applied and which
are “legally” acknowledged as a value. As regards
values to be implemented, according to a quantitative
analysis of landscape planning actions, it
is possible to assess the attention dedicated to
landscape values and to enhancing these;
• interpretation, according to multidisciplinary
viewpoints, is a necessary process to define
landscape values and constraints; as regards
regulative values, this phase of the evaluation
is based on knowledge of the historical-cultural,
natural and landscape assets to which restrictions
are already applied and which are legally acknowledged
as values, also identifying new assets;
identification of new assets requires expert
•
appraisal of the territory on the basis of ecological,
historical-settlement, perceptive use of the
territory and economic indicators. The interpretation
of consolidated values implies a process of
acquisition by appraisers/experts of local culture
and identity through wide-scale social participation
(collecting representative images of identifying
landscapes judged according to scores assigned
by cross-sections of the local population; Peano,
2007,; Farjon, 2007) in order to identify not immediately
perceptible identity values or those tied to
daily use and transformation of landscapes. As
regards values to be implemented, the process
of evaluation is directed towards reading and
quantifying landscape values characterised by
critical factors and/or weaknesses recognised by
territorial and landscape planning and addressed
with specific actions (on the basis of the number
of actions planned);
social legitimization is the process of construction
– through social participation – of new values tied
to local identity and policies and projects to enhance
these, of actions for constructing/designing
new assets for the deployment of policies and
projects to enhance and establish widespread,
shared landscape quality.
In this perspective, the assessment activity should
become a technical process that advances through the
public arena, in order to reinforce already consolidated
feelings of belonging and to create new ones. In this way,
assessment can help to depict scenarios of potential
action to enhance landscape quality and to consolidate
new “bonds” and feelings of belonging. Here, landscape
enhancement and protection strategies can become
crucial factors in actions protecting public institutions by
broadening the opportunities of all the parties involved
and through recognition of the crucial importance of the
parties’ acknowledgement of their reasoning, identities,
and bonds. “Activist policies” that effectively combine
integrated objectives of landscape conservation and enhancement
can be formulated only through this process
of recognition of the value of the landscape that involves
social perception of landscape and popular aspirations in
landscape choices. From this perspective, assessment
must promote the social construction of decisions. These
decisions would become the products of interactions
Tab. 1: The Proposal Method