Exploring the dynamics, possibilities and calculations of relaxation in city parks from a pragmatic and romantic perspective.
Let's start with what 'relaxation' precisely entails. It varies for everyone, yet I believe there's a fundamental principle on which both the pragmatist and the romantic would agree. It's clearly defined in our dictionary. The experience of relaxation is quite literal: 'the release of tension or strain, a chemistry of emotions, a state of mind that must counterbalance control.' For me, it's primarily about freedom, especially in the city. A moment of complete stillness, free from the hustle, noises, and obligations. I resonate more with the dictionary's definition of freedom, describing it as 'the perception that no other person determines your behavior.'
This is what we are supposed to experience in the park, or perhaps what many city dwellers hope to experience. Because we expect a lot from the park of the future. New forms of relaxation require more space, and meanwhile, space is becoming more precious. The city is getting fuller, and its residents more restless. At the same time, the amounts of urban nature as stipulated by the government are often not achieved, especially in the Randstad. In short: there is increasing pressure on the function of the city park. Designing such a space is literally a separate profession. The first designers of city parks in industrialized countries already knew this. The pragmatist and the romantic: both have thought about relaxation and in past centuries had their say about the spaces intended for relaxation.
Their time has passed. Or has it? Even though both have a defined place in history: viewing the world from reason or emotion is timeless. Therefore, I want to explore how the two perspectives are anchored in our society, history, and in ourselves. And perhaps even more importantly: what opportunities they offer for today's city dwellers. It will be explored how space for relaxation arises from emotion and reason, with the romantic and pragmatist as symbolizing archetypes. This will be based on concepts from traditional planning, leisure sciences, cultural history. Various European thinkers from history will feed the perspectives. Physical examples come from the Dutch practice from 1960 to the present.
The profile of the pragmatist: we know him as hardworking, effective, sensible, and down-to-earth. No words, but actions and goals. However Dutch and contemporary it may sound, the pragmatic ideology is timeless and transcends continents. A century ago, there was even sharp theorizing about it. The American theory of knowledge from 1898 delves into how human life, his thinking ability, and actions revolve around the practical resolution of practical problems or complex situations. Years earlier in 1798, philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) outlined a picture of the same phenomenon. He was one of the many Enlightenment thinkers who wanted to liberate humanity from religion that plays on human feelings. All progress of culture with which humanity is educated aims to apply acquired knowledge and skills for use in the world... "is the first line of the conclusion from his work, titled the Pragmatic anthropology.
To know the world, name it, and classify it in regularities that obey logic. Emotion has no place in this; we can't do anything with it. The more control and planning, the less chance of accidents. Call it pessimism, praise it as progressive insight: pragmatism became a dominant way of living. This rationality brought hope to arrange society in a reasonable way, to subject nature to functional requirements, and to steer human behavior. This brings to mind a contemporary theme: the 'feasibility' of society, the belief that people, society, and nature can be consciously and rationally organized and changed.
Netherlands is the epitome where pragmatists have triumphed powerfully. The saying, 'God created the world, and the Dutch created Holland,' underscores this phenomenon. The most famous historical example is, of course, land reclamation, with which we have almost doubled the surface area of our country. Equally striking is the efficient approach to landscape and urban planning during the reconstruction period. While the 1960s are described as the magical era of free, experimenting revelers, it is often forgotten that the pragmatist also flourished. This manifested itself in the space around life, approached from measure and number. Amid the physical devastation by war and terror; the loss of a sense of security and shelter; the euphoria of optimism and renewal, there arose a need for comprehensibility. National plans challenged as early as 1920 but were parliamentary implemented in the 1960s as the First Note (1960) and Second Note (1966). Over seventy percent of the rural area underwent significant changes. Never before in history has so much concrete been poured in such a relatively small density. Life was condensed into four themes: living, working, traffic, and recreation.
The fulfillment of the last pillar, recreation, is of course interesting for us. This is because the behavioral form of relaxation acquired a time and space that had not been delimited before. The five-day work and school week were introduced, making the free weekend a common phenomenon. Peace in and around the city, for young and old, rich and poor, man and woman, was an innovative experience of time, called 'leisure time.' Moreover, this was accompanied by an ideal regulated by the government. Relaxation was loaded with a purpose. Recreation was useful, educational, healthy – it was good for everyone. 'Scenic beauty, relaxation have become a necessity for man and especially for the city dweller... Surface areas for various recreational areas must be legally stipulated,' was noted in the Amsterdam expansion plan.
A larger group began to spend their time relaxing, and moreover, in an increasingly dynamic, playful, and social way. In 1952, a separate Leisure Activities Service was even established. Therefore, public and delineated facilities related to relaxation were created in all cities. Club and community centers, indoor sports halls, athletics tracks, and swimming pools were carefully designed. Nature was also designed for the first time solely for relaxation. Picnicking, chess, reading, kite flying, gymnastics, roller skating, or badminton, it had to take place in the open air. From this recreation policy, the expectation of nature arose that it had to be effective above all. It got a professional calculation formula and was determined based on purely statistical values, such as walking distance and housing density. Parks originating from that time are characterized by their linearity, right angles, neatly arranged rows of trees, long hedges, rose beds, extensive and sharply defined ponds, and wide green strips. Thalenpark in Drachten, designed by landscape architect Hein Otto (1916-1994), is considered an epitome of this calculative design methodology in the city in the Selection Proposal for the Reconstruction Protection Program 1959 – 1965. A more landscape-oriented example around the city of urban nature with the function of 'outdoor recreation' is the recreation area Spaarnwoude.
It seems we have now recovered from the immense focus on function and effectiveness. In a sense, that is correct. Discontent grew. 'Planning had to be careful not to succumb to the desire for practical application,' is a quote that aptly summarizes this. To what extent can life be made on such a large scale? Such questions sparked stimulating debates during the 1970s and 1980s. An American lady who also changed the minds of young Dutch planners was Jane Jacobs (1916 – 2006). Jacobs fought against the doctrines of her pragmatic colleagues as one of the first. Known as the 'urban goddess,' Jacobs argued that the imperfections and failures of a city should be celebrated. Not everything needs to be innovative, straightened out, or grandly conceived. Thus, the post-war pragmatist seems to have left the stage of our spatial design.
But have we truly escaped the pragmatic mindset? There is no writer who better captures our zeitgeist than Zygmunt Bauman (1925 – 2017). The Polish-British sociologist symbolizes the current era as the 'liquid society' that arises from themes such as consumerism, globalization, and digitization. Modern life is characterized by a fragmentary nature and frustrating instability. One must be flexible and able to switch quickly between realities, at work, in leisure, and in our relationships. Tension and relaxation intersect. For this reason, according to Bauman, we react in the same way as during the 1960s: we seek control. We try to steer our lives and divide and plan them. We also do this with the space around us. We want to interpret it, optimize it, install it, designate it, and transform it until it harmoniously aligns with our needs.
This brings us back to the city park, the space for relaxation. Just as we see ourselves as flexible, nature in the city has also become so. It is more boundless in its space and use. We see it as a tourist attraction, a place for drinks and cooking, a place to cool off during hot summers, a dog walking spot for the neighborhood, a bike route for day trippers, a wedding location, a sports location for boot camps and running training, a place for education, elementary schools, and a place for parties and markets. Some parks even enclose nearby to-go supermarkets, wifi, and flexible workspaces or mini-libraries. Simultaneously, intertwined and flexible, adapted to different needs. Nature must now willingly contribute to all those experiences. This began with interventions in recreation areas. Over time, the recreation area Spaarnwoude has acquired a real ski slope, golf course, and climbing wall. But for future parks, there are still many specific ambitions when it comes to experience. More mountain bike trails, artworks, fitness equipment, and playgrounds characterize the design of this generation of city parks (figure 5). Complete teams of sociologists, scenographers, designers, urban planners, and economists are summoned to realize these. A good example is the planned Leeuwenhoek Park in Delft. The design of this park includes differences in height; trees that shade the visitor in an ideal way; light beams that light up in various colors, and places that are made to catch as little wind as possible. In short, no more large expansive grass fields, but maximum stimuli.
Therefore, we can pose an important question: do we really need a specific space for relaxation? Isn't it more about how we experience, what freedom is, and how to evoke this feeling?The pragmatist cannot answer these questions. What relaxation actually means and how we experience our free time demand a deeper approach, which is where the pragmatist falls short. Therefore, the time has come to adopt another perspective. For this, we descend to a moment when a rational way of thinking was already questioned in history. During the eighteenth century, the romantic rebelled against the rational and indifferent thinking of Enlightenment philosophers. Efficiency and functionality were considered a narrowing of consciousness. On the contrary, it didn't even come close to relaxation. Romantics explored how, without a function or purpose, space is created to relax.
The true romantic – the nineteenth-century pioneer who, along with his contemporaries, caused a true upheaval in the conception of culture, art, and literature – is, of course, no longer alive. However, I can already sense how he would approach this issue. He would offer us the sublime. What is sublime? Where Immanuel Kant helped us define pragmatics, he is also useful in substantiating the perspective of the romantic. According to Kant, sublimity is experienced when the imagination fails to understand an environment with reason. The beauty of this way of relaxation is that we only need ourselves. Feeling dominates the experience. Think of immersion, grandeur, sensational things, and becoming overwhelmed. All of that is part of it, especially in landscapes. The pleasure that the sublime provides comes from the realization that you don't need to have control. It conveys the message that tranquility can be anywhere, knows no boundaries, and can change form.
Back to the present time, the city, and the park. Where does the romantic find relaxation, is it in modern urban nature or somewhere else? We can say that the romantic is, by definition, lost. Or at least, he also doesn't want to find the way because that's where his pleasure lies. For him, the world is not feasible. He doesn't fight against it; on the contrary, he embraces it. The Catalan urban planner Ignasi de Solà Morales provides a practical starting point that we can apply in today's time. De Solà Morales examined irrelevant places, which, let's say, are not entirely 'made' with the intention of relaxing there. She defines these places as "terrain vagues."
Terrain vagues are essentially the opposite of the parks described above, which are carefully and attentively designed. This could include an abandoned verge along a canal, a graffiti-covered bridge passage, overgrown areas that have fallen into disuse, or construction sites that have been worked on for years. As city dwellers, we often experience terrain vagues with a sense of annoyance. Or we don't even notice them, as they seem irrelevant to our daily lives. Therefore, I believe that the romantic would love them. These places are valuable for him or her because of their nonconformity, uncanniness, and unfinished nature, characterized by an absence of attention and control.
Is relaxation feasible? The conclusion is that it depends on which perspective you take. No, the romantic will say. We have just discovered that. Yes, the pragmatist will answer. He will wonder why we are even asking the question. The state-of-the-art park designs of today seem to align perfectly with all our recreation wishes. Nothing to complain about. I have a preference for a perspective, as you probably already know. Relaxation does not have a specific place, and we shouldn't want it to. Nature is demanded to be so beautiful, functional, and effective that daily life can also take place here. Park and city become intertwined. The gain is that nature is once again assigned a feasible dimension. The functional view of space withdraws the emotional from the world and displays the world in a compelling yet predictable atmosphere. Where we should have the possibility to break free from control, 'feasibility' is still being pushed in our faces threefold.
Therefore, we must learn to let go of control, wherever we are. Only then do we see how the physical space does not have to serve us. There is more mental space for various forms of relaxation that capture the imagination. Think of days when parts of the city are eerily quiet. Nights when all lights are extinguished, and in the middle of the city, you can see a shower of stars, the pushing wind blowing through narrow streets, or the austerity of a torn-up street. Okay, a bit romantic, but this gives you an idea. So, a message to all 'makers' of relaxation space: reconsider immediately assigning an undeveloped area to be a park. It's not about whether the hedges are neatly trimmed. Relaxation cannot be concretely defined and, above all, is not something that can be neatly groomed or created. We should not deny the messy, unstructured, and capricious needs of humans. An advice for users of 'made' relaxation spaces: occasionally seek the romantic in yourself. It's about learning to savor a different time and space experience. Let yourself be overwhelmed by the fullness of life and the feelings inherent in it, rather than resisting it. To quote Immanuel Kant for the last time: 'In the vastness of life, one experiences freedom.'
List of sources (51) available upon request from the author. Image resource: Le Corbusier, La ville radieuse, Paris, Editions Vincent (1964) p. 135 © FLC Adagp, Paris, 2007.
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