Heritage as Landscape Manicure – Questioning Idealized Historical Landscapes as a Model for Sustainability. The Example of Toarp Ecovillage in Sweden

Abstract

ABSTRACT When the ecovillage of Toarp was established in the peri-urban landscape of Malmö, Sweden, it was designed with inspiration from the historical regional landscape and its settlement forms. In the launching of the area the past was mirrored as more sustainable than the present. As demonstrated, the historical references in the planned and produced Toarp landscape are however made selectively and rather allude to an idealized historical past than to the processes that actually shaped the existing landscape. This, it is argued, is an aesthetization of the landscape heritage that is problematic because it uses constructions of the past – in this case to argue for sustainability – in a way that conceals the becoming and significance of fundamental landscape realities.