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Exploring Cultural Landscapes around Budapest, Vienna, and the Ruhr Region.
Landscapes are shaped by people; local cultural narratives have an impact on how we see the spaces around us. At the same time, enjoying landscapes is an individual aesthetic experience. I will share my impressions from four months traveling across Europe, using the bicycle for lengthy excursion through the metropolitan regions of Vienna/Austria, Budapest /Hungary, and the Ruhr Region in Germany. Further, I spoke to educators, planning and design professionals, and to members of public administration. Those interview partners explained planning and policy backgrounds, helping me to place my observations into the context of suburban development. The focus of the presentation will be on underlying cultural narratives that shape planning and design approaches to cultural landscapes within the suburban context.
Bio
Dr. Wolfram Höfer is a Professor at the Rutgers of Department of Landscape Architecture and serves as Director of the Rutgers Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability (CUES). Dr. Höfer developed numerous community outreach projects in the field of adaptive re-use of brownfields, urban resiliency, and infrastructure. His current research explores underlying cultural narratives that shape planning and design approaches to cultural landscapes within the suburban context. With climate change, that discussion gains more relevance because open space must meet the competing demands of producing renewable energy, providing food, recreation, and the need for housing.