Walkshop Raoul Wallenberg’s park
Where ?
Is the first question I asked myself reading the subject. Explore the landscape. Any landscape ? A familiar one ?
A constrained place whose linearity allows to see its changes on a strait walk.
In the end, I chose to explore a singular green corridor tucked between buildings and canal.
The sounds from the city suddenly get quieter and those, more organic, produced by the wind going through the trees and by the birds appears. When moving into the park, few options are available: forward or Abackward.onedimensional choice, somehow not a choice at all but a way to feel the space around changing.
In between Being between the city and the canal gives a unique feeling of being brutally isolated. Getting out of a forest of stone blocs and suddenly arriving under some trees, facing water and more trees on the other side gives off the impression of being in an other world.
Matter The ground is not unique, it is made of multiple materials, put together in multiple ways. One thing they have in common though is none of these grounds blends into the other. They are all one against each other and the limit between two is so abrupt it almost feels like doing something forbidden when going from one to another. Their textures all produce each time a new feeling even in the same material as if each blade of grass was truly different from the other. The temperatures change too, changing the feeling the material gives with it.
Elements Benches, trash, public lights. Those elements, even though they are part of the territory and play an important role in it, are often ignored as they are considered as obvious in the landscape. But truly : they are fascinating. Their practical function is so anchored in our everyday life that it is sometimes forgotten how incredible it is to be able to throw some garbage without it ending in the nature. Or how convenient it is to be able to see clearly at night. They are so obvious that the way they work is not questioned. Even though people often don’t know how it works or what system lies behind it.
One of the main things to come across when having a walk in a park in the city are definitely people. Either just passing by to get the shortest Google maps route, being there to relax or even working. All those people, even if indifferent from each other, create a relationship between them maintained by the park itself as a meeting point. The sound of the foot on the ground, changing as the soil changes. and as the pace intensifies. The voices conversing with each other. The tires of the biker that just had to brake. All of those sound change the park giving it some sort of permanent mobility.
People
