The Landscape Observatory of Catalonia, with the support of the Catalan Ministry of Culture, and the collaboration of the City Council of Olot, we are organizing the international seminar “Revisiting the historical gardens. The past in the present”. It will be held in Olot, in the Espai Cràter building on June 16 and 17, 2022.
Historical gardens play a major role in the contemporary debate on landscape quality and its management. Beyond the gardens recognised in the official catalogues, in Catalonia there are many with important heritage values, often with little to no protection and sometimes in danger of disappearing. We find them half-hidden in the cloisters of monasteries and convents, municipal cemeteries, company towns or summer houses, among other public and private places. The seminar aims to deepen the knowledge of their value and encourage their conservation and promotion, generating new conceptual and instrumental frameworks that facilitate their adaptation to contemporary times.
We live in a particularly opportune time to reflect on what the role of the heritage garden should be today, given the new context of climate emergency, renaturalisation of cities and social demand for greater health and well-being. The potential therapeutic, community cohesion, equity, and well-being-generating functions inherent in gardens – and to historical gardens – make them ideal spaces for responding to new social and cultural demands.
The seminar program can be downloaded below, or accessed via the seminar's website, along with instructions for registration.
Simultaneous translation will be provided from English to Catalan and Catalan to English.
In the afternoon of the 16th there will be translation from French into Catalan.
Seminar Program