Vaessen, Oscar (2023) Gardens of Earthly Delights: a comparative analysis of historic and contemporary parks’ realisation of design intentions. Master thesis.
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Abstract
This thesis compares two parks in Milan: the Giardini (Gardens) Indro Montanelli, constructed back in 1784, and the Biblioteca degli Alberi (Library of Trees), opened in 2018. The research is comprised of an in-depth qualitative review of both parks along a variety of factors, wherein the parks form the comparative material for each other’s respective analyses. For the theoretical framework, theory about the production of space and the relationship between design intentions, realised design and user experience is outlined, and a historic overview of park design paradigms’ development is developed, from the earliest urban parks in formal and picturesque fashion to today’s post-industrial parks. Guided by these theories, the parks are analysed regarding designers’ intentions for use and perception, these intentions’ translation into design, and the resulting use and perception by users. Hereby, manifestations of the stylistic, ideological and aesthetic ideals of the respective historic schools of park design are uncovered, and the coherence between the parks’ stated design intentions and the realised design and user experience is assessed, serving planners’ and designers’ creation of better future urban parks. A mix of methods is used, ranging from discourse analysis of historic texts to interviews with designers and surveys among park visitors. The conclusion discusses the degree of ‘success’ achieved by the two parks studied, based on the analysis’ results; the discussion, finally, places these results and conclusions in the context of the wider themes relevant to this thesis, and offers a critical reflection on their implication for the future of urban parks. Both parks studied are concluded to realise their design intentions to a large degree, although the contemporary park’s fulfilment of its intentions is hindered by a discrepancy between planners’ and designers’ intentions. In the discussion, this discrepancy is argued to represent the co-optation of contemporary design ideals regarding sustainability and inclusivity for planners’ mobilisation of capital for neoliberal urban development, creating a new park paradigm centred around the values of ecomodernism.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Master) |
|---|---|
| Degree programme: | Society, Sustainability and Planning (MSc Socio-spatial Planning) |
| Supervisor: | Dijk, T. van |
| Date Deposited: | 06 Apr 2023 07:49 |
| Last Modified: | 06 Apr 2023 07:49 |
| URI: | https://frw.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/4165 |
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