Journée d’études : “Water in Historic Gardens as an Aesthetic Category and Natural Resource”.

Jacques de Lajoüe, Scène de jardin, vers 1745, huile sur toile, 54,6 x 64,8 cm, San francisco, Fine Arts Museum.

Type : journée d’études.
Date et horaire : 19 juin 2018 .
Lieu : Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

In historic gardens and parks, water is both an essential aesthetic category and an indispensable natural resource. Water appears in a wide range of forms: outstretched lakes, bubbling fountains, or gentle ponds. Exploring a garden from its waterways optimally complements a stroll through the grounds—something visitors still love to do up to the present day.

Historic gardens—traditionally created as a Gesamtkunstwerk, embracing ­architecture, architectural staffages, and monuments within a natural setting—are highly ­dependent on the supply of water for very different types of vegetation. Consequently, the increasing number of drought events in the growing season and extreme summer heat as well as rapidly sinking groundwater tables may seriously affect the vitality of plants and trees. Likewise, raising groundwater can also be a major threat by impeding trees to grow roots into the deeper soil, hence, losing anchorage and thus becoming more susceptible to windthrow during storms.

This international symposium provides an opportunity to discuss such impacts and possible solutions to safeguard our historic parks and gardens with experts from Eastern Europe, with special focus on their relevance and applicability to the region of Berlin-Brandenburg.

Registration is available here»

Programme

2.00 Christoph Markschies (Vice-President of the Academy, HU Berlin), Introduction

2.15  Session 1
• Alexandra Veselova (Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg), The Water System of the 18th-Century Garden in Bogoroditsk (Tula region)
• Andrej Reyman (St. Petersburg), Water Fantasy in the Neva Delta: A Variety of Water Devices in the Gardens of St. Petersburg, 18th–20th Centuries

4.00  Coffee break

4.25  Session 2
• M. Norton Wise (University of California, Los Angeles), On the Social Aesthetics of Water and Steam in the Landscape Gardens of 19th-Century Berlin
• Vela Portugalskaya (The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg), Hydrosystem of the Gardens of the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg: Its Transformation and Impact
• Boris Sokolov (Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow), Aesthetics and Sustainability in the Russian Water Parks, from the Baroque to 21st Century

7:00  Closing Discussion
Chair: Christoph Markschies (Vice-President of the Academy, HU Berlin)