Historic Gardens Enter the Current Climate Debate and Help Shape the Future
With a call to integrate the value of historic gardens, parks, and cultural landscapes more strongly into current climate debates and to reactivate garden monuments as places of social exchange, the international “Future Lab for Garden History and Historic Garden Conservation in Hanover-Herrenhausen” concluded on Friday, 7 March 2024. Over the course of three days, around 120 participants met at Leibniz University Hannover (LUH) and in the Herrenhausen Gardens to engage—across disciplinary boundaries for the first time—in discussions on the status quo and the wide range of challenges facing both scholarly and practice-oriented fields related to garden heritage.
During a concluding panel discussion, participants agreed that garden monuments are not merely historical artefacts or endangered remnants of the past. Rather, as “living” cultural heritage, they make an important contribution to climate-change adaptation, biodiversity conservation, and the transition toward a more sustainable world. Awareness within society—and particularly within politics—of the specific and sustainable resources provided by public garden spaces must therefore be strengthened.
At the same time, a new conceptual framework for historic garden conservation was called for—one that explicitly considers orientation toward the common good, educational responsibility, scholarly approaches, collaborative practices, and the human–nature relationship as lived in gardens. Until now, historic garden conservation has been defined primarily as the research, preservation, and communication of evidence of garden and landscape culture. The multifaceted qualities of historic gardens, parks, and cultural landscapes have not yet been firmly anchored within this mandate. Among other points, the importance of garden conservation sciences for human health, education, and knowledge exchange was emphasized, as was their relevance for interdisciplinary collaboration within an expanded professional community. Open spaces from different periods—including gardens and parks, as well as cemeteries, urban squares, and fortifications—along with sites from the twentieth century and traditional horticultural techniques understood as intangible heritage, were highlighted as making a decisive contribution to shaping a livable future. Their professional preservation, scholarly research, and use as places of dialogue and learning were described as highly relevant to society.
Garden Monuments Need Research and the Next Generation
The three-day event on the future perspectives of garden heritage brought together representatives of leading organizations from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, spanning university, governmental, professional, and voluntary sectors. The organizers were Inken Formann, Professor of Garden History and Historic Garden Conservation at the Institute of Landscape Architecture at LUH, and the Centre for Garden Art and Landscape Architecture (CGL), a research institution affiliated with the academic field and active since 2001.
Funded by the VGH Foundation and the Lower Saxony Bingo Environmental Foundation, and organized in cooperation with the Environmental and Urban Greenery Departments and the Herrenhausen Gardens of the City of Hanover, the congress explored key fields of scholarly action and articulated the most pressing needs of garden monuments. Calls were made to improve training conditions for young professionals across many areas, to better prepare future landscape architects for careers in green heritage sites, and to strengthen horticultural craftsmanship. Discussions also addressed how the CGL might further promote scholarly discourse in the future and how it should continue to develop as Germany’s central research institution for garden history and historic garden conservation.
The range of topics extended from conservation measures aimed at preserving species-rich and genetically diverse plant populations in historic gardens, parks, and cultural landscapes under conditions of accelerating global warming, to gaps in scholarly research and data collection, competing usage demands, societal change, and legal issues, as well as the integration of artificial intelligence and digital strategies for data acquisition and knowledge networking. The most severe challenges affecting all green spaces were identified as the destructive impacts of climate change—heat stress, drought, and water scarcity, which affect plant and animal habitats alike—as well as soil erosion caused by heavy rainfall and flooding. Issues such as species replacement versus preservation and material conservation were discussed alongside cooperative approaches between monument preservation and nature and biodiversity conservation. Urgent research questions, welfare and health impacts of gardens, challenges for teaching, and new perspectives on education for sustainable development were examined in a total of 32 working groups.
Formann: The Professional Community Outlined Strategies for Preserving Garden Heritage
As a location rich in tradition, Hanover’s 700-year garden heritage served as a paradigm for the central problems and opportunities addressed by the Future Lab. Hanover also stands as a model for the wealth of its diverse gardens—including sites from the twentieth century—as well as for strong and constructive signals from municipal and state politics, the importance of civic engagement, and the role of education and mediation. It was from Hanover’s university that the academic elevation of historic garden conservation emerged, developed into a significant field of academic training by the garden historian Dieter Hennebo (1923–2007). In his opening address, LUH President Prof. Dr. Volker Epping recalled Hennebo’s commitment to protecting cultural heritage and emphasized the need to stand up for the democratic constitutional order.
“The conference, which was significantly co-designed by students from an LUH master’s seminar, received an unexpectedly high level of interest,” said Formann. “Participants not only welcomed the open-ended exchange of knowledge. Particularly inspiring was the combination of ideas from young people with the experiential knowledge of specialists who have long been active in their professions.” Formann also highlighted the large number of impulses submitted in advance, which contributed to the broad thematic scope of the Future Lab. “It was striking that not a single one of the 75 papers repeated the content of another. The contributions clearly demonstrated both the high scholarly standard and the thematic breadth of historic garden conservation, as well as the professional community’s capacity for dialogue on equal terms and for collaborative, interdisciplinary work oriented toward shaping the future. The professional community outlined strategies for preserving garden heritage for future generations.”
Leibniz University Hannover extends its thanks to all participants for their active and constructive collaboration.
