'As good as the West' : two paradoxes of globalisation and landscape architecture in St. Petersburg
Abstract
One of the challenges of contemporary landscape architecture is the globalisation
of place. Nowhere is the threat of homogenisation more apparent
than in places vulnerable to change, where the potential loss of heritage
fabric rings alarm bells. St. Petersburg is one such place, a UNESCO
World Heritage site and a city which had existed outside of the excesses
of late 20th-century Westernisation owing to its sequestration inside the
Soviet Union. The city is changing in response to exposure to the West,
and this could be a cause for concern, a worry that the city will become
just another ‘placeless’ place. However, we argue that this is a superficial
reading, and that in looking more deeply into the history and culture of
St. Petersburg, a legacy of borrowing from elsewhere is revealed. Moreover,
the aspirations for global ideals are not necessarily ‘placeless’, as we
illustrate through the ways in which St. Petersburg has made the landscapes
its own through the invention of tradition and a persistent sense
of ‘the local’ which is indelible to change. We use two case studies to explore
the dynamics of the global and the local in St. Petersburg: the historic
case of the grand palatial grounds of Peterhof, and the modern pedestrianised
street of Malaya Sadovaya.... [Show full abstract]
Keywords
landscape architecture; globalisation; heritage landscapes; placelessness; Russia; landscape designDate
2009Type
Journal ArticleCollections
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