A New Look at Civic Design
Before the industrial agenda of urban design, broadly promoting technology and economy, there was the social agenda of civic design, creating ecology and community.
This exhibition presents a chronological overview of the evolution of civic design as evidenced in the work that was central to it: the creation of regional park systems. Over a period of three centuries – from 1770 to 2070 – the exhibition presents a sequence of projects, from Wolfgang von Goethe’s Park an der Ilm in Weimar (1778), to Paxton’s People’s Park in Liverpool (1857), to the Olmsted Brother’s Regional Park System for Los Angeles (1928).
The projects featured in the exhibition demonstrate the historic effectiveness of park systems, shed light on challenges faced by communities implementing contemporary park systems, and encourage the re-evaluation of the intergenerational discipline of civic design.