Historical Structures as a Landscape Value
Abstract: Our landscape, transformed by people in the course of centuries, is indisputably a cultural landscape. It is a fundamental part of the European natural and cultural heritage, a significant part of the inhabitants´ life contributing to the stabilization of their identity. It concerns a combined work of nature and human which is a proof of development of the human society and settlements in the course of history. The most markedly it becomes evident as composed landscape, i. e. landscape proposed and created by man deliberately according to a given concept. In the landscape structure and its face, the memory of the past and human culture heritage is laid down. Precisely on that score the extent of preservation of the historical landscape structure and its form, as an attribute of regional dissimilarity, is an important aspect of definition of landscapes in a sence of European Landscape Convention. This article represents the newly created methodology of the territory classification from the preservation (not only preservation, but also a specific character) of the historical landscape structure point of view. It connects to the existing methodology of the ancient monuments and historical urban wholes evaluation. The classification of the landscape into several categories (A-D); by the way, it is also possible to complete other ones resulting from the specific properties of the evaluated territory (for example, border landscape, and others), can be a valuable basis for the definition of characteristic landscapes and determination of their target qualities on the regional level, and also for the definition of landscape districts and determination of landscape potentials on the level of municipalities with extended competence. This procedure takes into consideration an earlier neglected phenomenon in the landscape connected with the topic of historical cultural landscape. It works with the current and historical maps as well. On the basis of superposition and comparison of topical and archival maps together with aerial pictures, the existing and extinct components of the historical cultural landscape can be recognized. The method is all-purpose usable, besides the regional planning the outputs can be also applied in the preservation of monuments, the nature and landscape protection or in the land modifications. The application of the method is represented on the particular projects, in which the author participated.
