Structuralist Landscape design; the Assessment of Metamorphosis Process in Peter Latz Approaches in “Saarbrücken” and “Dora” Park

Peter Latz is a German landscape architect who is best known for his emphasis on reclamation and conversion of former industrialized landscapes and replacing the contaminated industrial sites with a place for recreation with special aesthetics. He tries to keep the main structures and to incorporate them into a postmodern landscape design for creating an innovative space for the users while preserving the memories and signs, structures and sites in the city. Latz has showcased his ideas in conversion of a contaminated site to a recreation space in 1980 by designing the Saarbrücken harbor which was a coal mine in the past. In this project, which considered as his first experience, an obvious track of classic aesthetics can be seen that diminishes thoroughly in his other projects such as Parco Dora in Torino, Italy. He has been successful in making a low quality and contaminated industrial site to a city park without cleaning the industrial remanant. He claims that considering the structure is the key element in his projects. He also considers himself a structuralist landscape architect. This point of view that has offered a special term of aesthetics in landscape architecture is a resulted matter in structuralism philosophies theorized by Klaude Levi Strauss and Ferdinand de Saussure. This paper tries to find out the structuralist theories and his points of view behind the projects of “Saarbrücken” harbor and “Dora” Park. In the reclamation of former industrialized landscapes, the site can be ruined and a new landscape with the classic principals can be implied that is generally accepted. In a case where we consider landscape design a process started by subjective matters, it will lead to objective and formal terms. Ignoring the real value of a place or person and designing based on constant principals will not be valuable especially in structuralism where the user is the most important element of design. Peter Latz has created a new style in the reclamation of former industrialized landscapes that embodies the relationship of the site and city structure as well as creating a unique space with various and attracting functions. His treatment of post-industrial landscapes seems to accept the formal and aesthetic nature of the existing, which derived from his ideas in structuralism. His approach has been significant from the beginning of his first experiences and it has been developing since his last projects.