the national, and indeed international, history of garden design. These projects illustrate garden conservation as it was practised in West Berlin;now there are bigger opportunities as well as more complex problems. The process of demolishing the Wall has created expanses of apparently derelict land in the historic core of Berlin and it is here that the CityConservationAuthority is taking an excitingly pro-active approach. One major project is the reconstruction of the linear park of the Luisenstdtischer Kanai. The canal was opened as a working ship canal in 1852 linking the inland waterways to the River Spree. By the 1920s the canal was obsolete, had started to silt up and become a health hazard and so was filled in. The opportunity was taken, again to a design by Erwin Barth, to enhance the 'green ways' of the City and create a linear park constructed at a level which reflected the original water level of the Canal and designed as a series of 'rooms' including gardens planted out with wild flowers from the surrounding country areas, herbaceous gardens as well as formal rose gardens and play areas allconnected around an extensive formal pool with 128 water jets surrounded by terraces and walkways. Almost the whole area was infilled and grassed over in the 1950s and then cut through and lost beneath the Wall and its associated security area. Now the gardens of the Luisenstdtisher Canal are being excavated and restored. There is, of course, a debate about the nature of the design; need it be a restoration of a 1920s design, should there be a modem design? But there can be no debate about the audacious strategy of the City Conservation Authority working with the District to secure a park as part of the historic fabric of the City, to establish its future in the face of competing interests and designs from the traffic engineers and commercial property developers. One part of the exercise, for example, was to use emergency funding provided by the District to plant over 250 semimature trees in four weeks to establish very visibly the line and extent of the still partly buried three kilometre park through what is apparently a building site. The restoration of the park is a DM40 million project under the direction of Volker Schirner, a landscape architect and garden historian and a prominent member of the City Conservation Authority. Herr Schirner not only deals with the historical research but is also responsible for allnegotiations with local residepts and local and national politicians. Herr Schirner sees the project in very broad terms, not only as a valid CONTEXT49 The 'Herbaceous garden' of the Karolinger Plazt, Charlottenburg. Erwin Barth frequently divided his designs into a set of separate compartments or 'rooms', each with a distinct theme or planting pattern. historical reconstruction but as method of restoring the historic structure ofBerlin itself and ensuring high-quality leisure space in what is, and always was, a relatively modest working class area. Although the emphasis is on reconstruction there is a parallel scheme to include users and local residents in the re-establishment of the park by negotiating with the residents' groups to develop new designs and to integrate modem facilities, plantings and amenities within Barth' s overall design framework. Local negotiation is always of fundamental importance but especially so with this project since Herr Schirner is constantly aware that half the residents of the area, those who were on the East side of the Wall, have had no active memory of the park for nearly forty years. The restoration of the park is now firmly anchored in economic regeneration and large coloured plans illustrate the advertisement boards of the construction companies working in the area. Berlin is anything but a typical city, and garden and landscape conservation practice has developed in exceptional circumstances. However, there are common concerns and lessons to be learned. Perhaps the most important is that real progress in the conservation of historic parks and gardens will only come when there is parity of legal protection with buildings. It was, after all, legal protection which provided the trigger for public funding in Berlin. This was not just funding for projects but more importantly funding to establish a recognised specialist department with trained staff working within the Senate responsible for planning the future development of the City. It is the existence of this specialist department which has enabled the development of a city-wide, coherent plan for the management of a large portfolio of historic space. It is through this department that conservation ofhistoric parks and gardens has become integrated into the designs for the future development of Berlin. Even in the absence of statutory protection the Berlin experience can be used as a model for the development of 'historic space' planning on a city wide scale in this country. In areas like Manchester and Leeds, for example, local authorities are themselves major owners of historic property, of municipal parks, hospital grounds and cemeteries the management of which may well be split between several different departments. It is worth looking at these collections as a whole. Indeed a pilot scheme to do just this has been commissioned by the Leisure Services Department of Leeds City Council with the aim of moving towards an integrated management strategy for all the historic parks, gardens and cemeteries of the City. It is moves like this, together with local lists which identify district or city wide characteristics, which can act as the base for strategic conservation decision making. There is then a chance that 'sustainable development' in urban areas can be broadened and deepened to become conservation led as a cultural as well as an economic activity. Drjudith Roberts has recently visited Berlin as the guest of the City Conservation Authority, Historic Parks and Gardens. She is grateful to Herr Volker Schirner for his help in the preparation of this article. 27
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