Landscape Protection

There is a book, recently published, that we should give as a gift to all our friends who are architects, surveyors, engineers, landscape architects, or in any case professionals who carry out activities that impact the landscape and cities: it is entitled Architecture and Democracy (Einaudi editions), and it was written by Professor Salvatore Settis , collecting some of his university lectures.

The strength of this short text hinges on a fundamental concept: an architect , and we can generally say any of the professionals we've mentioned, not only carries out a professional activity, which is very attractive, but must also feel responsible for the work commissioned . This responsibility is not limited to the interests and specifications of the client, but must extend to broader interests, those of the community, of the "We" and not of the "I. " Of all those who care about the fate of a common good, essential and precious as the protection of the landscape, the environment, and places, starting with the cities where we live and coexist , fortunately for us, according to the rules of democracy. Where, Settis writes, "the landscape becomes the theater of democracy."

ALSO READ: The Value of the Landscape: A Day to Reawaken Ourselves. And to Remind Us How Much We've Destroyed It (Photos)

HOW TO PROTECT THE LANDSCAPE

Yes, the landscape, the territory, the environment . The essence of our country's greatest waste . We have massacred it, and continue to do so, with unrestrained construction (55 hectares of lost land a day), and also with the daily, irresponsible exercise of our rights and duties. It's too convenient, too simple, to always blame this mediocre political class, ready to ride the first wave of abuses and amnesties.

Settis's book helps us look in the mirror, to reconstruct our small and large misdeeds with respect to places and the landscape , which, when added together, paint a picture of the disaster from which we must emerge. It used to be said: Surveyors have ruined Italy. A merciless judgment, and perhaps too general with respect to an entire category of professionals, but a warning signal, which we then ignored, about a method that has become devastating for Bella Italia. The method of doing things without regard for the aesthetics, history, balance, or sustainability of places . The method of finding the loophole in the law , or ignoring it, to commit small or large abuses, and then perhaps be indignant at what our neighbor , or our vacation spot, has done . The method of transforming the professional we turn to, with their complicity, into a shady facilitator (of abuse and violence in places).

HOW TO PROTECT LANDSCAPE AND CULTURAL HERITAGE

A street, a garden, a sidewalk, an island like a mountain, a city like a village: everything is ours, everything belongs to us, everything is a common good. But for this reason we must feel the duty, the responsibility, to preserve it, even for those who will come after us and who today have no means of defense.

The duty to care for the landscape also involves a tree we can plant, forgoing other uses of that land. And it involves a home renovation project, designed by an architect, an engineer, or a surveyor, who cannot, even on our whim, cross the line into arrogant and overbearing violation of the law. Here, beware, on the crest of this Great Waste, a crucial aspect of our quality of life and our lifestyles is at stake. Do we want to give it up, or are we ready to consider the landscape no longer as a constraint to be circumvented but as a resource to be protected? The answer lies with us, with each of us, starting with architects and surveyors.

WHEN THE LANDSCAPE IS TRAMPLED:

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