Evolution and memory in a heritage landscape

Abstract

Heritage preservation has become a major industry and pastime in North America and Europe. While the preservation movement has traditionally focussed on architectural structures, in recent decades heritage landscapes have been recognized for the wealth of historical, cultural, economic, educational, and ecological information about both the past and the present that they contain. Time and change are critical aspects of the landscape, but tend to be addressed inadequately in heritage landscape preservation practice and guidelines. This is demonstrated by the two disparate approaches, scientific and situated, to heritage landscapes in the field of landscape architecture. This thesis examines the origins, motivations, benefits, issues, and existing Canadian and U S guidelines for the preservation of heritage landscapes, and concludes that an approach that emphasizes memory and evolution of the landscape over static guidelines will create more robust and meaningful places.