From Environmentalism to Liveable Urban Landscape

Urban
landscape is far from being a new concept in urban planning and design, though
it was only 10 years ago that the European Council launched the Landscape
Convention, which has been approved since then by most of European countries,
among them Hungary. Landscape architecture as a means to improve urban
environment was born in the 18th- and 19th-century
English landscape movement, which opened and widened the scope of urban
planning.

On the
other hand, by the second half of the 19th century, the urban erosion
of industrial cities cried out for direct intervention and curing. The methods
developed, either along an urban or an anti-urban philosophy, resulted in the
new urban structure models of garden cities and later the green belt systems.
These systems have been drawn up not only on an urban level, but on a large-scale,
regional level as well ? first of all, in the garden city plan of Ebenezer
Howard ? and aimed to solve all the main urban problems by restructuring the city?s
fabric, controlling the urban spread into rural landscape, dealing with the
lack of green areas and open spaces for recreation and the improvement of social
life, and the lack of green spaces for ventilation and air quality protection. By
the 20th century, the garden city movement arrived at the next step,
at a new concept of urban green belt systems. At this point, urban development
gave up its strong technical-economical definiteness and incorporated natural
landscape elements into its concept, so as to create a sustainable, socially
friendly and healthy, all together liveable urban landscape.

  • Website : http://
  • Project start : 2010
  • Project end : 2011
  • Contact Person : Kinga Szilagyi
  • Funding Agency : BCE
  • Project structure : Urban Renewal conference, TUB,