Author Description

Modernist Reinventions of the Rural Landscape explores rural topographies produced by large-scale agricultural development and colonisation schemes planned and carried out in the 20th Century. Based on applied research conducted as part of an EU-funded project, this book collates material from an interdisciplinary and international consortium of leading and early-career researchers. Over the course of the book, eleven case studies throughout Europe and beyond are studied to investigate Modernist rural development schemes which were pivotal to Nation, and State, building policies. They provided a testing ground for the ideas of scientists, architects, engineers, planners, landscape architects and artists, who converged around a shared challenge. The book focuses on a number of interrelated themes: the politics and policies of modernisation, agricultural development and internal colonisation; the landscapes produced by the implementation of these policies, the Modernist architecture created in planned settlements; the means by which these were promoted and celebrated in propaganda and culture; the memories of people who lived through these times and the question of what to do with many of the remains of these settlements in terms of cultural heritage. Using a wide range of evidence-based research from primary and secondary data sources, including policy analysis, archival material, field surveys, historical landscape mapping and interviews, illustrated in full colour, this book covers a field of growing importance for landscape planning, heritage management and architectural history.