Here let me stop. Let me too look at nature for a while.
A landscape carries a memory. A hidden construction, which is a product of accumulated geological and human energy. The proposal intends to reveal this energy from the core of the earth. The mining landscape of the recent past together with the former agricultural landscape constitute the tools for an excavation of memory; a process which reveals a strong geometry engraved in the topography of the past.
The project is located in the northwest of the lignite mine of Ptolemaida, Western Macedonia. It is a depleted mine section of 466.377 acres, a longitudinal zone of 3.5 kilometers and width of 250 to 850 meters.
A landscape carries a memory. A hidden construction, which is a product of accumulated geological and human energy (1). The proposal intends to reveal this energy by using the mining landscape of the recent past and the former agricultural landscape as the tools for an excavation of memory.
On the one hand stands the huge elongated steps of the bold geometry, the rich spectrum of the earthy colors and the contrast between the horizontality of the intact land and the deep vertical cuts of the mining landscape. On the other, the linearity and regularity of the agricultural grids in conjunction with all their random plexuses.
The constant determinants of the land and the late ephemeral dynamic conditions produce a new hybrid situation, which composes a reminiscence of the landscape.
Our disciplines are prompted by following the traces of the former mining process. The man who left this land is still part of it. If we do not believe in this, the traces of human action may be seen as dirt, as harm, and not as valued and cherished marks (2).
The strong geometry of the mine engraves the topography and shapes levels, whose heights have changed in order to meet the human scale and create a monumental amphitheatric quality. The area of the existing stream crossing the site is redesigned and becomes the center of a more detailed layout.
Moving to the south, a cistern gathers the water from the expected future drilling and together with the strong presence of the living nature creates a new condition of coexistence.
On the east side, a small amphitheatric structure is placed inside a glade as a moment of relaxing surprise and later on the west a sudden transition from the surface activates the memory of the pre-living mine’s landscape. As a reset point of the excavation’s scale, a designed rift reminds the spectator the depth that once existed in this landscape.
The paths and roads are drifted along the proposal’s new geometry and redesigned accordingly. The same happens with the planting of existing species which compile the forestland.
However, the central areas which are not around water are treated differently; big amounts of packed soil cover the valleys along with gravel, larger rocks and other remnants of the mine. During the night the landscape is illuminated with tall wooden poles of light placed in rows following the new geometry.
A sensitive re-interpretation of the abandoned and multi-treated lignite mines into a land art Memorial.
- K. Manolidis, "Pros tin endochora: se anazitisi mias syneidisis tou topiou", 2003
- T. Kanarelis, "Landscape - Lifestyfe refuses time", 2008
Here let me stop. Let me too look at nature for a while.
The morning sea and cloudless sky
a brilliant blue, the yellow shore; all
beautiful and grand in the light.
Here let me stop. Let me fool myself: that these are what I see
(I really saw them for a moment when I first stopped)
instead of seeing, even here, my fantasies,
my recollections, the ikons of pleasure.
"Morning sea" by C. P. Cavafy
Translated by Daniel Mendelsohn