Landscape crisis or crisis in the world of landscape architecture?

The 7th European Biennial of Landscape Architecture awarded its prestigious Rosa Barba prize to a project that encourages a multi-sensory involvement of the user, through the rediscovery of the natural characteristics of the place.

The 7th European Biennial of Landscape Architecture came to a conclusion last 29 September in Barcelona. Titled Versus (Biennial against Biennial), this festival of international themes on contemporary landscape was organized by the Order of Architects of Catalonia (COAC) and the Escola Técnica Superior de Catalunya (UPC), alongside the Masters in Landscape Architecture (Master of Arquitectura de Paisatge — MAP).

Despite uncertainty and last minute preparations on the wake of the global economic crisis and its repercussions in Spain, this year's event was masterfully directed by Jordi Bellmunt, with coordination by Marina Cervera and moderation by Maria Goula. The Biennial is considered as a reference and stimulus to a possible beginning, as well as a platform for the major actors on the international contemporary landscape architecture scene, and will this year cease to be a biennial event to become a Foundation — the International Foundation of Landscape of Barcelona.

The most prestigious institutions teaching landscape architecture, alongside some of the major local representatives in the field of English and French landscape architecture — such as Manuel Ruisánchez (Professor at DUOT, UPC and founder of the studio Ruisánchez Arquitectes), Gilles Vexlard (co-founder with L.Vacherot Latitude North Studio) and Kathryn Gustafson — attended the Biennial events in the awe-inspiring scenario of the Petit Palau de la Musica Catalana by Lluís Domènech i Montaner and in the central COAC headquarters.

On the second day of the event, two round tables discussed the need for innovation in landscape architecture academic programs, as well as the effects of crisis and need of identity for the landscape architect role, within the common ground of the Spanish, Portuguese and Italian realities. These discussions illuminated the eternal and incredibly — sometimes even unexpectedly — present frustration of Mediterranean area landscape architects, and the need of an internal reinvention of the narrow academic circles and feeble stages of the professional field. Alternative practices, new attitudes, and possible formulas illustrated by the guests were welcomed by the audience, such as the case of Landworks Sardinia's Stefan Tischer and the ability to requalify sites with a "0 budget" or "low cost" operational approach.

Top and above: Marti Franch, <em>Environmental Requalification of the Tudela Culip </em> (Club Med) in the Natural Park of Cap de Creus, close to Girona — Top and above: Marti Franch, *Environmental Requalification of the Tudela Culip* (Club Med) in the Natural Park of Cap de Creus, close to Girona

Among the seven finalists for the prestigious Rosa Barba prize for European landscape architecture projects, extremely diverse projects could be found: from an almost philological restoration of the Historic Park of the Castle of Twickel Delden in Holland by Michael Van Gessel; to the formal yet poetic green memorial of the written garden "Jardin du Monde" by Marianne Mommsen; the Paris'"Parc de Martin Luther King" by Jacqueline Osty (which clearly references the most complex and well-known managed Parc Citroen and Parc Bercy, built in Paris alongside the massive redevelopment and regeneration by the great French landscape architects of the early '90s); the minimal and functional space of "Mangfallpark" in Rosenheim by young Steffan Robel (sober and perfectly linked to the needs of its users as well as to the spirit of the place); and the very successful intervention of the "Ile Seguin" or "Le jardin de prefiguration" by Michel Desvigne (the artificial island of the former Renault production area, along the Seine, a project with clear ambitions of sustainability, recycling and recovery of water). These lead the way to the two most interesting interventions, undisputed candidates for the prestigious Catalan prize, established in honour of landscape architect Rosa Barba.

Marti Franch, <em>Environmental Requalification of the Tudela Culip </em> (Club Med) in the Natural Park of Cap de Creus, close to Girona — Marti Franch, *Environmental Requalification of the Tudela Culip* (Club Med) in the Natural Park of Cap de Creus, close to Girona

The ETAR water treatment station in Alcântara, Lisbon by João Nunes of PROAP consists of a roof garden covering the new water treatment plant, initially designed for agricultural use but unfortunately inaccessible for security reasons, with a composite mosaic of reintroduced native species surrounded by highways that cross the Alcantara valley in Lisbon. The project camouflages the building and the surrounding area, creating an ecological and visual link between the territory and the existing linear infrastructures. The project seeks to directly refer to the sense of place, respecting the genius loci, and dusting off previously existing semiology, proposing a vivid mosaic of agriculture that once was stretching along the valley, evoking the look and typical aesthetic of the past agriculture.

Discussions illuminated the eternal and incredibly — sometimes even unexpectedly — present frustration of Mediterranean area landscape architects, and the need of an internal reinvention of the narrow academic circles and feeble stages of the professional field

The Environmental Requalification of the Tudela Culip (Cleb Med) in the Natural Park of Cap de Creus, near Girona was the project unanimously chosen both by the jury of international experts and by the public, and the winner of this seventh edition of the Rosa Barba Prize. In this project, young landscape architect Marti Franch (EMF) alongside his colleague Ton Ardèvol have proven proficient coordinators of the various professionals involved — more than 50 over the study's five years —, cataloguing and restoring for the environmental rehabilitation of the project area, translating the design process through an action plan rather than a master plan. With their "environmental radicalism", contemplating the contemporary approach of redevelopment and ecological and environmental rehabilitation for a "creative restoration for sustainable development", the designers demolished and emptied (thus freeing) the place from the tourist centre's structure, choreographing the site as to create the best conditions to help the user grasp the essence of the investigated landscape. The project introduces visitors to the place through a story, stimulating the cultural element within the nature of the area "in order to give the visitor a multi level polyphony of the investigated landscape".

The site's original 1960s settlement of the Club Med was comprised of 430 buildings on 1,2 hectares and 6 ha of urbanization within a nature reserve. It was closed in 2003 and subsequently acquired by the Spanish Ministry of the Environment, which through 2010 conducted the total demolition of the buildings and eradication of alien invasive species previously introduced on the 5 hectares. This was followed by the complete recycling of all demolished materials (45,000 cubic metres), and the recovery of native seeds found on site as a result of demolition — which were washed, filtered and then sprayed with hydroseeding. The native seeds then metamorphosed into a new mantle of native vegetation, covering the previous, artificial topography that disfigured the site. To do so, the architects used a series of precise methods, including cleansing the composite geological stratification using "archaeological" methodologies. Here, the studio was able to create not only an open air geological museum, but a real monument to the natural and ecological quality of the site. The synaesthetic approach to a multi-sensory involvement of the user, through the rediscovery of the natural characteristics of the place, will continue through the time frame of the project's implementation.

The attitude toward an "open process" that has marked the delicate phases of study, analysis and implementation is shown through accurate site-specific interventions (small "domesticities") in cor-ten steel, particularly suitable for their ability of resistance to marine attack and integration into a landscape already rich with iron. Local stone and special concretes are also used, instead of conventional concrete, in memory of the previous work and of the past of this place. These materials help to create an intervention that actually reverses the traditional vision of the attitude towards the anthropic landscape... Here, the architects pay particular attention the user's haptic perception, which comes from the very first impression that the place causes (such as humidity and temperature) through the largest organ that the user has, his skin. Thus they demonstrate the complete understanding of a lesson of the father of landscape architecture, Frederick Law Olmsted, whom by the end of the nineteenth century recreated such healthy environments with a remarkable aesthetic quality in towns abroad.... When you say it is a matter of skin! Annacaterina Piras

João Nunes (Proap), <em>ETAR water treatment station</em> in Alcântara, Lisbon — João Nunes (Proap), *ETAR water treatment station* in Alcântara, Lisbon

Landscape crisis or crisis in the world of landscape architecture?

The 7th European Biennial of Landscape Architecture awarded its prestigious Rosa Barba prize to a project that encourages a multi-sensory involvement of the user, through the rediscovery of the natural characteristics of the place.

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