Tree requirements for cities: Hundertwasser's legacy and Mitscherlich's vision!

Tree requirements for cities: Hundertwasser's legacy and Mitscherlich's vision!

In recent decades, thinking about our cities has become more urgent. This can be traced back to works such as Alexander Mitscherlich's “The Inhospitality of Our Cities,” which drew attention to the grievances in post-war urbanism as early as the 1960s. Loud the press Mitscherlich put his finger in the wound: the separation of functions and the excessive priority given to car traffic would lead to social disintegration and a harmful alienation from nature. This criticism has not only been heard in Austria, but has also given rise to creative solutions.

A central player in this development was Friedensreich Hundertwasser, a visionary artist and environmental activist. He called for humane architecture and spoke out in favor of concepts such as the individual “window right” and the “tree duty”. Hundertwasser, who was born in 1928 and survived the Holocaust, integrated nature into his architecture, for example in the famous “Hundertwasserhaus” in Vienna or the “Rogner-Therme” in Bad Blumau. Hundertwasser himself and his partners such as Peter Pelikan and Heinz Springmann have made a decisive contribution to realizing such projects and thus having a lasting impact on the cityscape.

The influence of the protagonists

Although Hundertwasser passed away in 2000, his legacy lives on. Harald Mann, another pioneer of ecological thinking, brought his idea of ​​the “evergreen city” into play in 1936, but it was only slowly recognized. Unfortunately, many of his projects, such as a planned spa complex in Leopoldskron, remained unrealized. Nevertheless, his and Hundertwasser's ideas contributed to the founding of a new "green" party in Austria that is intensively dedicated to environmental protection. In addition, historians such as Peter Payer have also contributed to examining these developments and sensitizing a broader public to the topics of urban design and closeness to nature.

The training of new specialists currently plays an important role in urban and landscape planning. The master's degree program in environmental management and urban planning at RheinMain University of Applied Sciences provides graduates with extensive skills. Topics such as neighborhood and urban development, nature conservation and open space protection are the focus of the course. The RheinMain University of Applied Sciences has set itself the goal of training generalists who not only bring economic and ecological knowledge, but also acquire leadership skills.

What awaits us in the future?

The trend towards integrating nature into cities is not just an aesthetic wish, but an urgent need. Given the challenges posed by climate change, the demand for more green spaces and a better quality of life is becoming ever louder. Cities are faced with the task of reinventing themselves and incorporating the lessons of visionary thinkers such as Hundertwasser and Mann into their planning. Whether this succeeds will be crucial for the harmonious coexistence of people and nature in our urban areas.