IDEAS LABORATORY: FUTURE OF THE PAST

From the landscape subjects of our School, we reflect on this concept related to time and memory, keys to understanding the historical city of Valladolid and its growth during the 20th century, extending its limits and becoming articulated on a large scale around two lines, one natural, that of the Pisuerga River, and another artificial, that of the railway. We have worked throughout experimental laboratories, working collaboratively with a large presence of students and teachers of various nationalities, who form debate groups that define landscape strategies through the landscape project.

The passage of the railway in the city is accompanied by a series of industrial and logistical landscapes, largely disused today, and constitutes a gap that segregates some neighborhoods such as Las Delicias. With railway integration projects, such as those developed in the old Renfe workshops or at the Ariza station, these terrain vagueare transformed into landscapes of memory, opportunity and suture, capable of bringing together and defining new uses for the inhabitants. The projects developed on the river try to activate the space based on existing infrastructure, such as bridges, canals and dams, seeking to weave together very heterogeneous urban fabrics, with the aim of reclaiming the prominence of the river and its role in the city.

The selected projects help to build linear landscapes in a contemporary city, which with its fractures and continuities, has been defined over time, trying to preserve the fragile balance between the natural and the artificial, between the urban fabric and nature, with the aim of projecting for the city a future of the past.