What is a cultural landscape?

According to Charles Birnbaum, who founded and heads the Cultural Landscape Foundation in Washington DC, they are places that have been affected, influenced or shaped by human involvement. 

A cultural landscape can be associated with a person or event. It can be thousands of acres or a tiny homestead. It can be a grand estate, industrial site, park, garden, cemetery, campus, and more. Collectively, cultural landscapes are works of art, narratives of culture, and expressions of regional identity.

We interviewed Charles about the evolution of North American cities and he is featured in the introductory episode of the Saving the City series about how to make cities better places. 

Please help us complete our first four 60-minute episodes here.

Charles Birnbaum discusses cultural landscapes below:

Established in 1998, the Cultural Landscape Foundation has assembled North America's largest database of cultural landscapes and its website offers exhaustive narratives and visuals about important people and places.

We are are filming this week in Cleveland, mostly for a story about Public Square for our Parks & Trails episode.  We are also shooting b-roll for future stories including about the West Side Market, Cuyahoga River/The Flats and the Gateway redevelopment project that scored Progressive Field for the baseball Guardians and Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse for the basketball Cavaliers.

Below, Cleveland's Terminal Tower as seen from Public Square:

Please share this newsletter with friends and family…..our newsletter archive is here.

And check out our work and let us know what you think.  We're always eager to learn about new stories and be referred to people we should know about.

After watching Saving the City, you will never look at cities the same way again.  

Help us raise the remaining $368,000 needed to complete our first four episodes.  All funds go through the International Documentary Association, a 501c(3) non-profit. 

Thanks to generous funding from the William Penn, Packard, Hewlett, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia Foundations, Heinz Endowments, an Urban Land Institute leadership group and individuals led by George Miller and Chris Larsen, we have raised over $932,000 to date. A more complete list of contributors is here.

Thank you to Deborah Cardenas of San Francisco for her recent contribution.

DONATE

CITY QUOTE 

“Parks are not just for the rich and privileged; they are for everyone. They are a great equalizer, a place where all people are free to enjoy the beauty of nature." 

Fredrick Law Olmsted, noted landscape architect

FUN FACT

Denver is one of the few cities in the country that wasn’t built on a road, railroad, lake or navigable body of water.  Settlers were attracted to the spot because of the gold found there.

Cleveland's West Side Market is depicted above:

GOOD READS

Want to make a deposit on a chunk of Columbus banking history?

Chicago wins!  Why did the Federal government reverse course and decide not to tear down a pair of landmarked State Street towers?

If you build a floating wetland in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, will they come?

Copyright 2024 © Ronald M. Blatman, Inc. All rights reserved.

www.savingthecity.org