Future Park

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Similarly, despite the potential to create a quite remarkable transnational parkland network, there is currently no deliberation on how a park-like approach might enable access to, and raise awareness of the Roman Limes, which form a cross shape marking the boundary of the empire from ‘Scotland to the Black Sea and the communist Iron Curtain from the North Cape to Greece’.60 In Utrecht, the northernmost extent of the empire is largely invisible on the surface of the city, but by night is revealed as eerily evocative lines of light glow through cracks in the pavement. In this way, landscape architects OKRA manifest the ghosts of the past, but do not overwhelm us with them. We’re used to seeing bold, coloured light as part of a contemporary night-time streetscape, and could think nothing more of it. Once the light lines’ meaning is known though, the distance between us and our fellow travellers of two millennia ago is suddenly not all that great. The post-conflict transformation of political boundaries into Linkage Parks retains a physical reference to the cultural artefacts of the boundary as well as offering the possibility of a mediating neutral zone as a meeting ground for new beginnings. Embraced by the citizens of Ljubljana, Slovenia, is The Path of Remembrance and Comradeship. It marks the location of a World War II barbed wire fence surrounding the town that was constructed by the Italian army in 1942 to suppress anti-fascist resistance by separating the city from countryside. The fence was nearly 30 km long, with its own 80 metre-wide no-go zone, and included over 200 fortifications. It remained in place for 1170 days until liberation, when it was immediately demolished.61 The first official commemorative walk around the fence line occurred in 1957, and was organised by a returned servicemen’s group. The same year saw The Path declared a protected monument, with the proviso that a memorial walk be held each year. Formal transformation of The Path into a circular, linking parkland was completed in 1985.

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