Save Our Heritage Organisation
Magazine
Winter 2007 - Volume 38, Issue 1
What is a Cultural Landscape?
By Alana CoonsThe Guidelines for Treatment of Cultural Landscapes define a cultural landscape as a geographic area (including both cultural and natural resources), that is associated with a historic event, activity or person, or exhibiting any other cultural or aesthetic values.
The four general types are historical sites, historical designed landscapes, historic vernacular landscapes, and ethnographic landscapes.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation (CLF) explains, “Cultural landscapes can range from thousands of acres of rural land to homesteads with small front yards. They can be man-made expressions of visual and spatial relationships that include grand estates, farmlands, public gardens and parks, college campuses, cemeteries, scenic highways, and industrial sites. Cultural landscapes are works of art, texts and narratives of cultures, and expressions of regional identity. They also exist in relationship to their ecological contexts.”
Why are cultural landscapes important?
Cultural landscapes are a legacy for everyone. Benefits from the preservation of cultural landscapes are enormous. As with historic buildings, these special places reveal aspects of a country's origins and development. Through their form, features, and the ways they are used, cultural landscapes reveal much about our evolving relationships with the natural world. They provide scenic, economic, ecological, social, recreational, and educational opportunities, which help individuals, communities and nations, understand themselves.
Why is it important to protect cultural landscapes?
Unfortunately, neglect and inappropriate development put our irreplaceable landscape legacy alarmingly at risk. Too often the long-term environmental and cultural ramifications of short-term decisions are not understood and as a result we lose a unique portion of our cultural patrimony. The constant effort it takes to protect our nation's cultural landscapes is everyone's responsibility. Their ongoing preservation and interpretation can yield an improved quality of life and a sense of place and identity for future generations.
More from this issue
- From the Editor
A new look with an old name
By Alana Coons- Most Endangered
By Bruce Coons- A Brief History of Rancho Guejito
By Bruce Coons- Another Part of the Story
By Bruce Coons- The Threat
By Bruce Coons- What you can do to help
- The Beauty of our State Parks in Peril
By Bruce Coons- The Cultural Landscape Connection to Historic Preservation
By Alana Coons- What is a Cultural Landscape?
By Alana Coons- The Historic Home Landscape and Gardens
By Alana Coons- A Short Landscape Glossary
- Importance of the Garden in Home Planning
By Richard Requa- When was Modern New?
By Todd Pitman- Every Bungalow Represents our History
By Allen Hazard- History Repeating
Restoring the Whaley House
By Dean Glass- The Sherman-Glbert House
By Alana Coons- 150th Anniversary of the Jackass Mail
By Bruce Coons- Lost San Diego
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