“The Poetics of Remediation” was the motto of this year’s Landscape Biennial in Barcelona. In other words, it was about the poetics of remediation. However, the biennial did not always do justice to this motto, both thematically and internally.
Urban planning par excellence: Barcelona. While the city's superblocks are a positive example, the Barcelona 2023 Landscape Biennial was not convincing. Photo: Kaspars Upmanis / Unsplash
Important instrument for mitigating climate change
The twelfth Barcelona International Landscape Biennial took place in Barcelona from November 24 to 28, 2023. The theme of this year’s biennial was “The Poetics of Remediation”. It considered how landscape could become an important tool for mitigating climate change and future challenges in the built environment.
To this end, landscape architects from all over the world were invited. Nevertheless, anthropocentric ideas of landscape from the western world dominated the Biennale. There were exceptions, particularly in the contributions from universities as part of the school prize.
The school prize goes to Norway
The Biennale included the presentation of the International Rosa Barba Casanovas Award for the best landscape projects, the International Landscape Architecture School Award and a symposium on the latest topics in landscape architecture.
On the first day, the entries for the school prize were presented. Ten finalists presented their projects at the Faculty of Architecture of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). Among the finalists was the Technical University of Munich with entries under the direction of Professor Udo Weilacher. The school prize was won by the Arctic University of Norway with entries aimed at designing processes together with human and non-human actors. The Istanbul Technical University and the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru received special recognition.
The weekend included various events. Among other things, new books were presented, different places in Barcelona were visited and a thematically related cinema program was offered in the evening.
Rosa Barba Prize: only a few social or ecological projects
The main program of the Biennale began on the fourth day. All the projects of the eleven finalists for the Rosa Barba Prize were presented. It became clear that the jury had endeavored to represent projects from all parts of the world. The projects came from North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania. There was also a German representative, the summer island in Heilbronn – planned as a joint venture between LOMA architecture . landscape . urbanism and RB+P Landschaftsarchitektur from Kassel. The final winner was the Tangshan Quarry Park project in Nanjing, China, by Z+T Studio.
The individual projects described different scales and themes. From a regional narrative development for the Birmingham coal region to a sponge city project in Bangkok, landscape architectural impressions from all over the world were presented. 225 international projects were submitted.
It was surprising to see how few projects actually solve current challenges of our time. Many projects presented a conservative image of landscape architecture. Sculptures, gardens and landscape designs dominated large parts of the projects presented. Only occasionally did social projects, such as the neighborhood park in Medellín, or ecological projects, such as the Benjakitti Forest Park in Bangkok by Turenscape, appear.
Many authors described their projects with superlatives without being able to fulfill the ecological, social or context-related descriptions presented. The appropriation of indigenous elements from individual projects was also present. So there was a lot of “about” and little “with” talk. Despite the different countries from which the projects came, there was little diversity among the project representatives.
Lectures - from indigenous knowledge to Bogotá's urban redevelopment and the use of plants
The program of the fifth and final day consisted of presentations by jury members. The lecture by Bruno Marques was particularly refreshing. The IFLA President spoke about the most important core topics of landscape architecture, conveying motivation and a sense of new beginnings. He spoke about how important it is for landscape architecture to involve all people in the planning of our landscapes. He specifically addressed indigenous knowledge – including having this knowledge represented by the people who have it. In other words, exactly what did not happen at the Landscape Biennale.
Other interesting lectures were given by Professor Gareth Doherty from Harvard University on landscape architecture in border regions, Martha Fajardo’s rousing lecture on the green urban redevelopment of Bogotá in Colombia and Professor Cassian Schmidt’s lecture on the use of plants in times of climate change.
What would be nice for the next Biennale
We would have liked to have asked questions about this. But that was not planned. The Landscape Biennale is a special event for landscape architecture. That is visible and important. Nevertheless, it would be nice if younger and more diverse faces appeared at the upcoming Biennale and more space was offered for discussions and questions in order to be able to show a contemporary image of international landscape architecture that is not primarily characterized by Western ideas and landscape designs.