Townscape
The townscape is the appearance of a locality and in the broader sense of a city ( townscape ). This includes the entire space , i.e. not only buildings but also streets, squares, parks, lanterns and other equipment. The townscape is in interplay with the landscape .
The preservation of historical structures as a testimony to the development of society, economy and architecture , as a means of identification for the population, as added value and tourist value is often in conflict with the search for functionality, the needs of traffic, construction and ostensible economic interests.
This article deals in particular with the appearance as well as the endangerment and preservation of the appearance of villages, market communities and cities in Germany and the Alpine region . For more background, see the article Cityscape .
Endangerment of the localities
From the post-war period to the present
Since the post-war decades, sites have been endangered by the demolition of historic architecture that is worth preserving. In addition, by plastering the framework , cladding the facade with asbestos cement panels or plastics, removing historical windows and shutters made of wood and replacing them with industrial building materials and products. With the latter also subsequent house extensions, as were most frequently vestibules , winter gardens and balconies running. This development was greatly facilitated by the emergence of hardware stores . Unsightly street lamps were added. The savings bank buildings of the post-war decades are also criticized in professional circles, as they often damage historical sites, but the savings banks are obliged to act in the public interest and to serve the common good .
|
|
|
|
The picture from the Swiss Jura shows an example of the destruction of a site by many "pinpricks"
|
Destruction of historical sites by savings banks. Example Kreissparkasse Ravensburg in Wangen im Allgäu from 1970
|
Since the early 1970s there has been a rethinking and old building fabric has been preserved or exposed again and street lamps replaced. In the same decade, however, as a result of the energy crisis, there were renewed, significant interventions in the townscape through the subsequent installation of thermal insulation , which has only recently come under criticism for a variety of reasons. Many facades of houses have become unsightly due to the formation of mold and algae and clearly impair today's townscape. More recently, satellite dishes and cell phone masts have been added and, in particular in the less densely built-up pre-Alpine villages, large asphalt surfaces have been added.
There are also development plans for new districts, the i. Often almost any house shape was allowed in earlier decades. The recent rapid increase in prefabricated houses does the rest. Today, the relatively few places with an intact inner-city appearance mostly have unsightly outlying areas.
- “ Large parts of Switzerland today are among the structurally ugliest areas in Europe. Many localities are badly defaced and / or resemble an architectural chaos. In many places it is even necessary to speak of unsightly building deserts or an urban disaster. For the inclined observer no longer worth living and certainly no longer worth seeing! "
However, in the case of the destruction or the preservation of beautiful or historical sites, there are very large regional differences in the understanding of the population, as in building law. In addition, the social situation, origin, education and lifestyle of the homeowner play an enormous and often all-important role. The educated middle class has a high affinity for the preservation of the townscape.
Special problem in the Alpine region
Urban sprawl and urbanized villages
|
|
|
|
Urbanized village: Sonthofen
(town since 1963) |
Typical (pre) alpine urban sprawl: Feldkirchen in Carinthia (town since 1930)
|
Especially in the Alpine region and in the northern foothills, with a relatively low density of historical cities by Central European standards, one often encounters urbanized villages, the most unattractive form of settlement. Due to the lack of cities, villages and market communities in Bavaria were elevated to district towns, such as Sonthofen or the district capital Garmisch-Partenkirchen . High settlement pressure encouraged urban sprawl even more than elsewhere. Like almost everywhere else, the planning was not integrated, without a basic idea or overall concept, accompanied by a failure of politics and spatial planning . However, due to its special conditions, all this had an even more ugly effect in the Alpine region than in many other places.
So today the edge of the Alps in the north and south is sprawled for hundreds of kilometers and far into the main valleys. As an indefinable mixture of village and city, residential and commercial, settlement and grassland, flanked by highways and high-voltage lines. So the once tranquil, historical, alpine scattered settlements turned into the most unattractive areas of Europe (see also the quote above). With little functional and impractical townscapes, no recognizable structures, traversed by a forest of signs, with town centers that are difficult to find and very difficult orientation.
In the Black Forest , new buildings are only allowed to be built under the strictest of conditions at historical solitary farms and hamlets . In the Alps, this is often handled less strictly, so that here today historical villages, hamlets and wastelands can often no longer be demarcated from each other and one can no longer speak of a townscape in the scattered mass .
Damage to tourism
"Even today, in many parts of the [Bodensee] region, the advertising photos of the tourism associations no longer have much to do with reality."
Unsightly townscapes and urban sprawl had a negative impact on tourism. Holiday tourism withdrew from the area and is now concentrating in particular on its core Alpine areas. The summer freshness in the foothills of the Alps largely disappeared, hotels in 1b locations closed and taverns are dying out. Vacant hotels, predominantly in Switzerland, and vacant second homes and holiday flats with lowered roller blinds almost all year round are an additional burden on many inner-Alpine locations ( cold beds ). Affected places today leave an extinct or dead impression and have become unattractive as a permanent residence as well as a holiday home. In Switzerland, attempts have been made to counteract this since 2012, through the federal popular initiative "Put an end to the endless construction of second homes!" .
Examples of alpine settlement densification
|
|
|
|
Chur West with the Twin Towers
|
Chur, Lacuna district
|
Settlement in the Alpine region is usually not concentrated on focal points, but is spread over the area. There were relatively few urban centers with significant townscapes or individual objects that characterize the townscape. Exceptions in Switzerland are, for example, the Skylounge Towers in Rorschach on Lake Constance or the capital of the canton of Graubünden, Chur . In Chur West , a townscape-defining closure and entrance gate was created with the Twin Towers, and with the older Lacuna district, another landmark in the Alpine Rhine Valley, which is characterized by urban sprawl and fragmentation of the landscape .
An example of alpine settlement densification in a very small area is Grenoble . On the area the size of a village of 18 km² there are 160,000 inhabitants, large research institutions and several colleges and universities for a total of 80,000 students. A large boulevard with Parisian dimensions characterizes the cityscape. Under several names, it leads as a striking, straight line beyond the city limits into the suburbs, integrates them into the urban landscape and creates the cityscape of a metropolis with Parisian density and structures.
Examples of preserved sites
Favoring factors
A topographical location that offers little or no space for new things often helped to preserve the beautiful townscape . Like the extreme example Venice or the Lindau Island or mountain towns like Siena and San Gimignano . Also in cities where there is enough space for commercial or larger residential areas , but not next to the old town or the historically grown city, but at a completely different, non-visible place, such as in Burghausen or Überlingen . However, the building laws , like the general understanding, tend, with a well-intentioned intention, against the often sensible decoupling of new commercial and larger residential areas from the historic town centers, and this is how the confluent settlement mush arose everywhere . Local gentry can also have a positive impact on an entire place beyond their own large property. For example Wolfegg in Upper Swabia , as a tranquil island in a region that has largely become faceless. Furthermore, special cultural landscapes favor the preservation of townscapes, with residents and decision-makers who have a greater understanding of this than elsewhere. As in Germany, for example, in Weinfranken , with places like Volkach , Sommerach or Iphofen , which show that maintaining and caring for the townscape can also bring great economic benefits. These places received great impetus from individual tourism and thus a further economic basis.
Examples
|
|
|
|
Sommerach in Mainfranken
|
Sent in the Lower Engadine
|
In Switzerland, the best preserved townscapes can be found in the Lower Engadine , with the villages of Guarda , Ardez and Sent .
literature
- Allgäu in transition : photographic time travel through the landscape with comparative photos from earlier decades and today, which document the destruction of images of the place and landscape. Verlag Eberl Medien, 2006, ISBN 978-3-920269-30-6
Web links
- ISOS - inventory of places worth protecting in Switzerland
- Weltwoche: The disfigurement of Switzerland
- Merkur.de: A fight against the disfigurement of Bavaria
- On the increasing disfigurement of Austria: FAZ: “Our village should become uglier”, January 11, 2013
Individual evidence
- ↑ FAZ.NET: Stop the Dämmwahn, May 13, 2014. Retrieved on April 4, 2018 . “This colorful group treats itself to campaign sites on the Internet that are neutral and independent [...] Chambers of architects warn their members against negligent promises. The theoretically calculated energy savings definitely never materialize [...] if a customer notices this after the construction work has ended, he can sue the architect. The first processes are running. The homeowners association now advises against insulating facades afterwards: It is practically never worth it. "
- ↑ archicultura.ch. Retrieved April 4, 2018 .
- ↑ Urban sprawl in the Lake Constance region, St. Galler Tagblatt, July 25, 2006. Retrieved April 6, 2018 .