7.0638 Qs: History of Parks; Landscapes (1/78)

Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Thu, 5 May 1994 23:46:55 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 7, No. 0638. Thursday, 5 May 1994.

Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 20:15:03 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Maunu H{yrynen <hayrynen@csc.fi>
Subject: A double inquiry


Dear editor to the HUMANIST,

I have made an inquiry on the same topics a while ago, but I hope that new
people with fresh knowledge have joined the list since that.

I am writing a doctoral thesis about the
history of public parks in Helsinki, Finland. If anyone has got any
ideas about the ideological, symbolic, iconographical, discoursive or
social/political meanings of the public parks in various countries, I
would be extremely glad to hear about them. I would also appreciate
comments on theoretical or methodological approaches to parks,
be they from the field of urban history, urban geography,
sociology, architectural and garden history or any combination of the
abovesaid.

I am also involved with another research project about the landscapes
- natural or cultural - that have a particular national esteem in
Finland. I would be interested to hear about any connections between
the landscape and the nationalist thought that someone might have come
across in his/her study. These may cover the history of landscape or
topographic art as well as cartography, tourism or landscape
conservation/preservation. Especially valuable would be information
about "hallowed" sites and their historic development (such as that of the
Hudson River valley in O'Brien's book). Also references to national
myths about forests or wildernesses would be highly welcome.

Maunu Hayrynen
Helsinki University of Technology
Institute for Research of the Built Environment
Otakaari 24
02150 ESPOO
Finland
tel. 358-0-135 92 13
fax 358-0-455 45 08