Uncovering hidden histories in landscape architecture

Through a series of online and in-person workshops and co-produced public facing activities and outputs this project will strengthen and extend the existing international Network of European Landscape Architecture Archives (NELA). The extended network will bring together academic institutions, archives and professional bodies for the first time. It will establish a new, innovative, international and multidisciplinary collaboration, raising awareness of archival materials and archives with significant holdings of materials related to landscape architecture. Landscape architecture archives preserve the profession's legacy, and this project will demonstrate how archiving and archival research contributes to a thorough understanding of the historical development of the built environment professions, and how archival documents can contribute to a better understanding of key contemporary issues relating to landscape and public space, such as the climate and biodiversity crises, rapid urbanization, migration, and spatial justice.

The network will use the history and legacy of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) as a case study project to assess the opportunities international networks hold in historic research and to communicate historic research to different audiences. Established in Cambridge in 1948, IFLA today represents 77 national associations and its mission to create 'globally sustainable and balanced living environments for the benefit of humanity worldwide', could not be more relevant. Its approaching 75th anniversary makes it timely to assess its contribution throughout the decades.

This proposed international network will create a collaboration between the main European archives with significant holdings of landscape architectural materials, and educators, researchers as well as third-party organisations.They will consolidate and disseminate the shared history of IFLA, and, through understanding its history, assess its role for the future. It is only through building and maintaining an international and interdisciplinary network that this objective can be achieved that respects the dynamics of a continuously changing landscape, an evolving profession and their histories. By building and contributing to a collective memory, the network will support landscape research and education, deepen the understanding of problems regarding current spatial interventions and increase insight into heritage issues, to both professionals and, indirectly, the general public, to be able to answer to the specific perspectives on and interests in managing current and future landscapes.