Recap of Memory of the Designed Landscape #1Recap of Memory of the Designed Landscape #1

Words by Linda Köke

Moderator Andrea van Pol gives an introduction to what this meeting will cover. In addition to the speakers, van Pol explicitly invites the audience to provide input and ask questions on how archives of garden and landscape architecture should be preserved. The audience present is very diverse: there are many landscape and garden architects in the room, but also researchers. There are also representatives from various archives in the Netherlands, as well as some policy workers.

Josien Paulides, Business Director of het Nieuwe Instituut briefly explains the reason for this assignment from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science to het Nieuwe Instituut. It is responsible for the national architecture and urban planning collection. This does not include the archiving of garden and landscape architecture, although they are logically related. As there is no central repository for the archives on garden and landscape architecture, this is now being agendized. The Memory of the Designed Landscape programme is a response to this and explores in a network context possible solutions to the issue of archiving garden and landscape architecture.

Marten Kuijpers, project leader of Memory of the Designed Landscape, elaborates on the project, looks back at what has been done since its launch in 2022 and looks ahead to what is still to come until the end of 2024. The coming period will see the beginnings of a shared and future-proof perspective on archiving the unique history of the designed landscape. Not only by preserving, sharing and interpreting the important archives, but also by employing them in future design assignments and the preservation of cultural-historical values of gardens and landscapes. The project focuses mainly on the question of 'how'. The ultimate goal is to anchor the archiving of garden and landscape architecture in future cultural policy, with recognition and structural support.

The programme of Memory of the Designed Landscape is roughly divided into three parts. First, because the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science asked for research into a networking solution to the issue, examples in this area were examined. Thus, eight best practices were examined through interviews with institutions that link archives, many of which are easily findable and visible through a digital portal. Kuijpers mentions Brabant Cloud (part of Erfgoed Brabant), Network Archives Design and Digital Culture and Podiumkunst.net as examples. The second part of the project constitutes a comprehensive mapping of the network, consisting of archive users, archive creators and archive managers, and elaborates on the research on archive managers done through interviews and surveys at 18 institutions. Finally, through case studies, it investigates four concrete archives with different issues, which provide many valuable insights into the search for solutions around archiving, as well as stories that can help increase support for the archiving of garden and landscape architecture archives.

One of these case studies is Bureau B+B](https://bplusb.nl), a landscape architecture and urban design firm. Their broad portfolio ranges from small gardens to large urban planning projects. Speaking on behalf of Bureau B+B are Tomas Degenaar (direction and landscape architect), Jeanette Visser (cultural technician, working at Bureau B+B since 1998), Mathieu Derckx (landscape architect, working at Bureau B+B from 1989-2001) and Anneke Nauta (landscape architect, director Bureau B+B 1996-1999).

The physical archive of Bureau B+B currently consists of 640 drawing cases, 400 folders, drawings, records and communications, and more than 100,000 slides from the period up to the mid-1990s. The archive is structured by project codes per period. From the start, Bureau B+B archived selectively: early on, they realised that not everything can be kept due to lack of space. Among other things, they preserve hand-drawn designs and choose to digitise a lot. But how can you archive in such a way that you generate interest in the place where they live both professionally and for the general public? An answer comes from the audience by an employee of Atria Knowledge Institute for Emancipation and Women's History: an independent and knowledgeable selection committee objectively determines the value of potential archive material.

A digital archive has been launched on the Bureau B+B website. All projects since its foundation in 1976 are already listed on the website; the content behind it is gradually being added. One can search by period, location, description and client. Nauta shares her dream for their archive: "My dream is to use georeferencing to discover what colleagues before me have designed for a place. I envision a kind of time travel of designs. By knowing the history, you end up making a better design.”

Next, Anne Mieke Backer (visual artist, outdoor spatial designer and author) shares the perspective of the archive user. She talks about her research on the role of women in the history of the Dutch landscape and she elaborates on the handling of the legacy of Dutch garden architect Mien Ruys. Backer names the enormous value the diverse archives had for her research, underlining the value of preservation - especially in alternative data. Whereas the "official" sources, such as commission letters and drawings, provided a good starting point, the richest sources for her research often turned out to be precisely the non-scientific ones, such as letters, diaries and art objects. Although women often commissioned garden designs, official documentation often includes only the husband's name. Alternative sources are thus invaluable on reconstructing such histories. All the results are compiled in Baker's book, Er stond een vrouw in de tuin.

One of the archives she came across in her research was the one on Ruys. She found this archive in a pitiful state in an attic room full of boxes eaten by mice. Backer made a plan to sort out the archive, digitise it and make it accessible at Wageningen University. In this, she collaborated with Leo den Dulk (green heritage specialist) and Anita Dijkstra (assistent-curator of special collections Wageningen University & Research). When asked what should be preserved, Den Dulk answers: "For me, as a researcher, it is important that all these sources are well documented and accessible. Every researcher is looking for different information: ideally, therefore, everything should be preserved, but in practice it is of course different." Backer adds: "Because the Netherlands is so often spatially rearranged, it is important that we can peel off all the layers." This sound is also heard from the audience: "We have a right to oblivion: that's why we have those archives. There may be an occasion in contemporary times when someone from history becomes important again.”

Gerlinde Schuller in the audience briefly talks about how she is building an archive around a communal garden (Geuzenhof 1) by Mien Ruys in Amsterdam-West. She shares a series of recommendations with the audience: more content references, more direct links, better search engines, working with AI or volunteers to improve metadata (data about data), unlocking material from private individuals and working interdisciplinary and internationally. She also advises the use of more (linked) open data (data that is publicly available to anyone and possibly linked to make connections easier). Finally, she mentions that small archives do not have to wait for a large, umbrella network that several archives and institutions can join, but can already start setting up their own network.

Project leader Marten Kuijpers closed the afternoon with a word of thanks and a look ahead. The project group will work out a number of scenarios, for which input will be sought from the network in several public meetings in the first half of 2024. Following this, the outcome of these meetings will be presented in two sessions: one before and one after the summer. Simultaneously, the communication process will start to bring this project to the attention of archives, users and other stakeholders. Kuijpers invites everyone to share their input and questions. To close, moderator Van Pol raises a glass: "To the memory of the landscape: may it never be lost."