Heritage and Identities: The multi-layered landscape

Working Group 4: Heritage and identities. The multilayered landscape

Bratislava team: Katarina Kristianova; LNI coordinator: Adrian Noortman

The aim of this workshop is to explore the potentials of a landscape biography approach for a contemporary and integral landscape development. The complex heritage of borders and border landscapes reaching back all the way to Limes Romanum or more recently to one of the most dividing borders of modern human history, the Iron Curtain. The Iron Curtain has lost its physical presence. However, its strong negative legacy is still invisibly present. In the area in and around Bratislava, we encounters the heritage of the Roman time, the castle of Devin, the baroque ensemble of Schloss Niederweiden, the urban architecture of the Soviet era in Petrzalka, and the remnants of the Iron Curtain. All this together contributes to the identity of the landscape.

This complexity is fragmented. The challenge is how to connect the different layers of heritage in order to strengthen the landscape identity.

Study and planning area

The focus of the working group is de area along the border between Schloss Niederweiden and the Three Countries Point.

Our guiding questions

  • What elements of the cultural heritage constitute the tangible evidence of the old and the recent history this cross-border landscape?
  • How can we connect the various layers of history? How can people better understand, perceive and value this heritage?
  • How can this heritage be characterised and further developed and protected in such a way that it contributes to the well-being and prosperity of the inhabitants of the area?

Planned results

  • An overview of the main types of heritage in the area with their characteristics.
  • A concept for connecting and valuing the main layers and landscape elements of heritage.
  • An exemplary landscape proposal for a site or project.