Landscape

The word landscape is mainly used in two senses. For one, it refers to the culturally determined, subjective perception of an area as an aesthetic wholeness ( philosophical- cultural studies concept of landscape ), on the other hand it is, especially in geography, used to describe an area that is characterized by scientifically detectable characteristics of other areas demarcates ( geographical concept of landscape ). Generally, however, there is no uniform definition of what landscape is, which is why the concept of landscape can be called due to its life-world, aesthetic, territorial, social, political, economic, geographical, planning, ethnological and philosophical references as a " compositional " whose " semantic [r ] court " was coined by over a thousand years, the Central European ideas, literature and art history.

• 2.1 In the landscape geography
• 2.2 In the geomorphology
• 2.3 In the social constructivist Landscape Research
• 2.4 The spatial planning
• 2.5 In the European Landscape Convention (ELC )

Conceptual history

Etymological origin

The term landscape is a composition of the noun country and the suffix -tion. The noun " land" ( MHG lant ) comes from the Germanic and its original meaning may have been " free country ", " fallow " or " clearing land " since this is the ablaut of Neuschwedischen ( Dial ) linda what so much as " waste land " means. Already in Germanic times is changing the meaning of ' free, open country ' to ' territory ', and later in a contrast to city, water, etc.

The suffix -tion can be etymologically to the Indo-European root * skapi / * skapja / * skafti of the verb " scapjan " lead back, which means something like "create" means. The substantive derivations form feminine nouns in the word meaning of " nature " and can be divided into three main groups: in abstractions (eg, domination, mastery ); in collectives or more precisely Group names (eg team, neighborhood ); and room names (eg county or even landscape ). So they all have the name of something Zusammengehörendem together by human activity which (Eng. "create", en. " Shape" ) is created.

The development of a territorial and legal policy term

Lantscaf The OHG word or lantschaft could first be detected around the year 830, calling something "that has the quality of a larger settlement area in most cases ." Originally it was in this context, the basic meaning of the usual of the split in a given area of behavior and social norms of its population of residents and developed with respect to its importance contents of the " social norms in a country " to a " country where such standards have validity. " Thus the concept was conceived in the course of the 12th century as a political-legal space, which in turn formed part of a larger political unit itself. The political action -age (ie, the non- farmers ) in the region were beyond as "representatives of the, whole landscape ' ", so that the concept of landscape in the late Middle Ages to an expression of human laws and legal institutions evolved. In the High Middle Ages with landscape also referred to the managed and controlled by a city zone beyond which, however, was distinguished from the (still) not cleared forest. Fassbar in a geographical sense, the term ' landscape' since the Renaissance, while the root word -tion the earlier meaning of a written, organizational unit suggests - in distinction to the expression of land.

Thus, the term landscape was thus " a social, initially descriptive later normative, blurred regional component taken a political meaning by stately functions were regionally locates and distinguished from one another ."

The constitution of the aesthetic landscape

The beginning of aesthetic concern with place and space can be located in Ancient Greece and is continued in the Roman culture after the first precursors in Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Israelite culture. The study of space, focusing heavily on a locus amoenus, ie a place where certain objects, such as a tree or several trees, a meadow, a stream or source, are in relational arrangement to another, that they the viewer convey a sense of well-being and existence of bliss. In the Middle Ages, however, the aesthetic concern with place and space loses, because " [ t] he gaze is directed to heaven, but not to its earthly manifestation ". The medieval spatial representations were primarily the visualization of the location of the event or in the form of symbols and allegories as a reference to Jesus Christ as Savior. Only in the Renaissance, landscape painting was established as an independent discipline. Here, formed " an essential form of social ideas of the type of an idealized landscape [ ... ] ", which " oriented towards visual stereotypes seer Maintenance [ was ] ," which was passed on to the consideration of physical spaces.

Language History of the concept of landscape in the German-speaking world was only from the 15th century to an aesthetic significance in terms of a natural cut -watched ' extended a meaning component which retained its validity until the present.

The geographical concept of landscape

The geographical landscape concept is relatively new, a modern phenomenon and not clearly defined. The definition of landscape as "total character of a Erdgegend " is repeatedly attributed in the literature Alexander von Humboldt, however, is in Humboldt's writings undetectable (but from the subjective "total impression of an area " that arises in the viewer ). Fassbar in a geographical sense, the term ' landscape' since the Renaissance, while the root word -tion the earlier meaning of a written, organizational unit suggests - in distinction to the expression of land.

Both in literature and in textbooks landscape is used in four meanings, which have in common that a landscape zukomme a single character:

The latter terms, the visual appearance of an area and its reception by an observer, you specified as a landscape view, landscape view, they go into this form back to the landscape painting, which developed as a separate subject of art in the Netherlands during the 17th century. But are landschap Dutch, English landscape that the German word - influence - even in a scientific context.

Meyers Lexicon of 1908 defines landscape about as " any section of the earth's surface, we are able to overlook from a particular location, to seem to collide in the horizon or horizon heaven and earth ," and adds: "Every L. may be a natural science, be considered from an artistic or under a cultural and historical point of view. "

Landscape as a geoscientific concept

The landscape concept that is controversial within the geography, has gained its importance primarily in everyday language and is connoted with semantic content, which ultimately amount to physiognomic terms such as harmony, beauty, unity, wholeness, peculiarity, diversity and delineation. There is disagreement about the ontological ( holistic ) Status of the landscape as a geographical area, which differentiates itself by different characteristics from other areas, whether the scenic unit lies in cultural objects and geological formations themselves or arises in the minds of the viewers.

In Switzerland and Germany - in the sense of the word root - shaft- with scenery, ancient, country club ', a geographical- political space named, for example, the canton of Basel-Country, the south adjoins the Canton of Basel-Stadt; here means landscape also " the resident in Basel country people." On the political- geographical importance of landscape companies in Germany, the Regional Associations of reference. Meyers 1908 describes this meaning as " landscape, as much as the province; in the constitutional sense, as much as country estates. "

In the landscape geography

In the landscape geography landscape is considered as the basis of human existence and expression of human actions and ideas of order. This landscape is considered both as a static ideal state, with landscapes that match this, usually as healthy landscape ' are referred to. On the other hand landscape is in constant dynamics, because the landscape objects of use are subject. This contradiction is due to the concept of landscape, linked to the aesthetic aspects with material properties of a spatial section. This has made it possible that the concept of landscape at the same time received normative aspects, as they were virulent for example, in land conservation and landscape architecture, home and nature conservation. This concept of landscape forms the semantic background, are derived from which further provisions.

In geomorphology

Another is the use in geomorphology and other descriptive branches of the earth sciences, where one tries to classify geographical area in the taxonomic sense in a kind of graduation ( then about of large landscapes and small landscapes speech ), ie to analyze the typological sense, then one speaks of a landscape from different landscape features ( topographic landforms, types of land cover, climatic characteristics, as well as settlement patterns and other human geographical About imprints ) composed, and can be characterized as: a distinction between natural ( natural landscape ), which in turn into inorganic landscapes (desert, salt lake, desert of ice ) and organic landscapes ( forest, savanna ) are divided, and man- dominated landscapes ( cultural landscape ). In this sense, landscape an area is, in the typical characteristics, patterns repeat themselves, and includes physical, biogenic and anthropogenic (including soziogener ) structures, such as geomorphological ( rocks, sand, hills, level), environmental (water, forest, meadow) and technical ( stone walls, embankments, buildings, roads ) landscape elements. In ecology and their derived and applied sciences such as Landscape ecology is the concept of landscape, the term usually preferred natural space. In practice, it thus comes to rival and often almost congruent definitions of " natural areas " or " Nature Area (main) units ". This overlap is attributed to the fact that the ecological units are assigned to physiognomy discrete areas.

In the social constructivist Landscape Research

The social constructivist landscape research summarizes landscape less as a physical event, but rather as a socially and culturally produced as mediated construct. The acquisition and construction of the world, and because of that landscape, is the representative of the social constructivist perspective directly related to the perception, which in turn is not an isolated event, but rather the result of " a very complicated process of interpretation [ is ] in which current perceptions with previous perceptions " are put in relation, so that in every perception in the form of abstractions some prior knowledge about the world flows with ( here over the landscape ).

The construction of landscape is always in spatial contexts, so that the spatial arrangement can be considered as the basis of the synthesis, landscape '. Because the level of the landscape and the plane of the room are constitutively related to each other in the construction of landscape. However, this dependence is not absolutely necessary in the construction of space, as the example of the industrial space or industrial landscape shows: Thus, " [b ] estimmte arrangements of objects [ ... ] are constructed as a space (eg industrial space ) without them scenic qualities be attributed to ( ie, it is the space thus created the term industrial landscape ' denied), but are objects whose spatial arrangement is not considered, not designed as a landscape ".

So make landscapes on the one hand of abstraction of humans, so they are on the other, projections emotional occupation, where material already learned, is as a result of a long social development process of cultural norms, always the basis for the interpretation of sensory perceptions as landscape.

Thus, in addition to the physical and social level, the individual person is a key component in the design of landscape. For it is there, the landscape on the basis indicated socially mediated interpretation and evaluation pattern and thereby relies on properties of the physical space and it is related. This creates landscape " at the intersection of physical objects, person and society."

To study the different levels of the social construction of landscape can be seen as an analytical framework, the concept of four-dimensional landscape of Kuehne. Kuehne distinguishes four dimensions:

In spatial planning,

This makes it clear that was subjected to in the German science of geography in the 1950s, the term "landscape" a wide-ranging discussion, a discussion that zeitigt its impact up to the present time. To specify the spatial reference of the concept of landscape in total detail, but no satisfactory, unambiguous definition could be assigned to the term " landscape". In spatial planning is therefore worked in a general sense with the concept Geographic space, and about talk of free space, which refers to a social activity, one or spatial planning as a control measure of development, both in regional political contexts, as well as at the level of the joint efforts of the European Union. The terms region, area, region, district are largely synonymous, but are opposite depending on the author as either not apparent structure of the landscape, such as political regions (especially as a translation of foreign-language expressions), or as a central working concepts of regional geography, the term landscape superior. Landscape is then special shape of the region, while second consists can be applied just as casually in all departments of geography on global and geopolitical constructs such as dropping down to small-scale scale of the corridor concept. Both concepts, space and region, now complement the concept of landscape in the interdisciplinary nature of the geosciences as well as the interaction with geopolitics and other natural sciences and the humanities.

In the European Landscape Convention (ELC )

In the European Landscape Convention, we find the following definition:

" ' Landscape ' Means to area, as Perceived by people, Whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and / or human factors. "

Toponymy and naming

Landscapes can proper names, known as toponyms, such as wear of the resin. At the same time the resin is a low mountain or - scientifically typisierend - a mid-mountain or mountain scenery. You might as well classify the resin under forest landscape.

In the examples Glogau - Baruth glacial valley, Northern ridge or Saarmunder Endmoränenbogen we find scientifically, especially by embossed terms that hardly find use in common parlance geology.

However, this is true for general - geographical maps in terms of the label. But nevertheless play this because they call typical natural areas with common characteristics, a role. Both for the Glogau - Baruth - glacial valley and the northern ridge of land, there are virtually " subsets " that can have much to show in general terms and notoriety ( Baruth glacial valley, Spreewald for the former, Feldberg Lakes for the second example ). In addition aggravating that natural landscape boundaries often do not exist. Exceptions are, for example, Air sheaths around in the mountains.

For the spatial structure in geosciences see also: Region.