Groningen
Clearing Groningen NL
In 1990 the municipality of Groningen commissioned Lucien
den Arend to make a proposal for a landscape project on
the contours of the urban space, which project like peninsulas
into the landscape. The Groningen landscape consists of
vast farmlands and has a flat polder landscape. In this
area large stretches of forest were to be planted.
The sculptor proposed using the forest to create an environmental
project bringing back to memory the fashion in which the
wooded land used to be cleared in the past centuries. In
this way den Arend uses architectural shapes which echo
the urban public space - the sides of the entrance path
are to be formed by two rows of oak trees, their foliage
regularly cut to a flat plane to evoke the feeling of the
urban environment between the facades of buildings. The
trunks would resemble a colonnade like in the architecture
of classical urban environments.
The flat foliage will be much like
the row of trees that flanked the Grand Terrace of le Nôtre's
palace gardens in Saint Germain en Laye in France.
At the end of the kilometer long path there is a clearing
- with the colonnade continuing along its perimeter. The
form of this urban-like square is the same as that of the
inner spaces of monumental classical architecture.
After the exhibition exemplary projects in 1990 in Groningen,
in which clearing was presented, the city waits for the
realization possibilities.
clearing - drawing 100x70cm - 1990|1991
oak trees (quercus) and various other species - 100x100m
- the entrance path is 1 Km long by 11.33m wide -
Park Noorddijk Groningen NL
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