The importance of parks for cities and rural regions has become increasingly clear in recent years. Green spaces, trees, and unsealed landscapes in urban areas and the countryside are not only used for leisure activities; they also form ecological corridors, lower temperatures, prevent mudslides, and are a trump card in the fight against global warming. In his book "Living Cities. Three Centuries of Park Systems." Matthes Skjonsberg takes a look to 30 park systems in five contients.
Madrid Rio, Arganzuela skatepark (2010) © Images: Courtesy of Burgos & Garrido, Porras La Casta, Rubio & A-Sala and West 8. Photo: Jeroen Musch
Civic Design
Stable and healthy habitats for people and local flora and fauna: parks that offer all this can be found both in the form of extensive areas in rural areas, such as the Swiss National Park in the Lower Engadine, and in the form of green spaces in cities, such as New York's Central Park. Park systems ensure clean soil, clean water, and clean air for everyone. At the same time, they offer intergenerational and inclusive opportunities for leisure activities along ecological corridors. Between 1900 and 1950, civic design, urban and landscape planning explicitly oriented towards the common good, experienced a heyday. Park systems were successfully used as “green fixtures” to house public facilities such as playgrounds, schools, administrative buildings, hospitals, and gardens.
S. Bridgeman, General Plan of the Woods, Park and Gardens of Stowe (1739) © Image: Courtesy of Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
From Weimar to Addis Ababa
The book Living Cities offers a chronological overview of civic design based on more than 30 park systems on five continents. The examples range from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's park on the Ilm in Weimar (1778) and John Nash's Regent Street in London (1806) to the park system in Chicago (1850), the plans of Albert Bodmer and Maurice Braillard for Geneva (1936) and Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin Valley (1947) to contemporary and future projects in Addis Ababa, Madrid, Medellín, New York, and Seoul. The book illustrates the ecological and social impacts of park systems and highlights the diverse challenges communities face in implementing such projects. At the same time, it encourages a reassessment of civic design as a cross-generational practice of urban design.
Matthew Skjonsberg, "Living Cities. Three Centuries of Park Systems", 288 pages, 30 x 24,5 cm, 225 coloured und 55 s/w-illustrations, hardcover, Park Books, Zurich 2025, ISBN 978-3-03860-363-4
