Cultural Landscape as a Concept of the Regional Landscape: Cultural Landscapes as a Subject of Research, Education and Planning Practice in Thuringia in Germany

The cultural interpretation of landscapes has been the focus of the cultural landscape research group at Erfurt UAS for around 20 years. During this timespan, the various cultural factors and elements that determine the cultural landscape of Thuringia were systematically analyzed. The intention was to get an overview on the regional landscape system of Thuringia and to understand the complex interactions in the cultural and natural environment. This article firstly reflects the meaning of the term “cultural landscape” in the recent academic discussion of landscape architecture. The notion “cultural landscape” underlines the value of culture for landscape in Germany quality. After that the article gives an overview of the efforts to optimize, preserve and design landscapes that can neither deny nor hide the cultural and economic constituents. Its paradoxical nature explains culture landscapes as an important and value-giving component for human existence. Cultural landscape studies enable to the identification and development of differentiating structures in seemingly uniform geographical regions. However, there are however other factors like loss of biodiversity, lag in understanding ecosystem services, of loss of cultural diversity, economic value, homeland connectivity and human identity that deprive of substantial evaluation. The awareness of the cultural wealth of historical landscapes provides the opportunity for landscape architecture not only to protect but also to create productive exhibits that could participate in the future development of cultural landscapes. Maintaining and integrating the cultural heritage of landscapes in landscape architecture can be realized from environmental impact assessments of infrastructure projects to landscape design projects in built areas. A better understanding of cultural landscapes will lead to a more careful handling of them in spatial planning and development and to a greater awareness of research through a more scientific and strategic approach.