The speakers at this conference – the programme says – are from the non-academic world: why then ask an elderly academic to speak about teaching? I will try to give myself a few answers.

The first: because for some time now landscape has been proving to be a useful tool for teaching and more precisely, as the programme adds, for teaching design (of architecture? of territory? it is to be clarified). It is a powerful key for interpreting the contexts, large or small, in which one designs; and thus for acquiring awareness of the values and stakes at stake, the risks and criticalities to be faced, the networks of interactions to be considered and the public and private actors to be confronted. In keeping with the game of mirrors proposed by the conference, the P. is used to teach how to design the P.. And one could go on: to make the P. serve more effectively the pursuit of the objectives that the various operators in the various sectors have also pointed out today. To a large extent, these objectives can be grouped around the notion of ‘quality of life’ or, to take up today’s programme, the ‘pleasure of living’. And it is precisely the notion of P. (in the broad meaning that is emerging internationally) that can serve to identify the ways in which to respond to the demands for quality and habitability of the territory emerging from contemporary society. That is, to ‘teach’ how to use the most appropriate tools and actions to improve the habitability of the territory, in all its dimensions: from functionality to sustainability to beauty.

A second answer: because teaching for the landscape does not seem to be adequately ensured by the structures, training apparatuses and institutional arrangements in place, and is therefore a problem to be solved. A problem that has in fact been very clearly posed by the European Landscape Convention, where it places an obligation on the adhering parties to promote training and education (art. 6) in the field of P. This is moreover the specific task and raison d’etre of Uniscape, one of the three organisations (with Recep-Enelc and Civiscape) set up to promote and monitor the implementation of the Convention itself. Precisely the European Network of Universities for the implementation of the European Landscape Convention (CEP), constituted in Florence in 2008, has in fact as its statutory purpose (art.5) the promotion of university cooperation in the field of P., with reference to the principles contained in the CEP and with activities (art.6) of both scientific research and teaching. In opening the exhibition hosted here at the Castle last October, dedicated to landscape research and teaching in Piedmont, the Director of Uniscape, Bas Pedroli, recalled the organisation’s main activities:

-supporting research and experimentation on the P. and its transformations and evolutions,

-facilitate cooperation between members through the exchange of scientific expertise for P.,

-encourage the mobility of specialists particularly for internships and knowledge dissemination,

-promote new training processes and co-ordinate a European Master’s degree for P.,

-provide for the regular updating of the database on courses, training profiles and traineeship activities in place in European countries.

The need to support P. policies with teaching therefore finds in the apparatuses put in place at European level a first relevant attempt to respond. But it is interesting to note that something is also moving at world level, for example within Unesco with a Master’s degree specifically dedicated to the management and planning of World Heritage Sites. And even at a local level there are training initiatives such as those referring to Landscape Observatories or Ecomuseums.

A third answer to the initial question, somewhat different from the previous ones: because the teaching of P. is inseparable from the landscape experience, because the landscape experience is in itself a learning process, a collective learning process. This quasi-identification can be seen under various profiles, which I will try to summarise briefly.

First of all, it has to do with the ‘pedagogical’ function of the P., with its capacity to guide or influence our attitudes towards nature and the world, staging ‘the beauties of creation’, constituting the ‘theatres’ in which we act, soliciting individual and collective reaction to the dynamics (anthropic and natural) of change, promoting awareness of the risks and values involved, constructing new images and new rhetorics of the territory…. When the CEP encourages ‘increasing the awareness of civil society, private organisations and public authorities of the value of landscapes, their role and their transformation’ or enhancing training and education, it points to the pedagogical function of the P. It is a function that obviously finds its most explicit expression in landscape planning (which inscribes a code, in some way ordering, in the dynamic materiality of places) and even more so in the intervention projects that voluntarily ‘create’ the P.. Thus the projects awarded by the Council of Europe (art. 11 of the Convention) are called upon to ‘serve as a model’ for other territorial authorities.

But even without plans and without awards, the P. teaches us how to move in the world. Here the three answers I have tried to give inevitably converge: the P. ‘is’ teaching, it is the figure of dance. Even the most ‘natural’ landscapes, such as typically the most celebrated nature sanctuaries or great natural monuments, reflect cultural watchwords and models that ‘teach’ how to use nature, or at least how to look at it. But this is not a one-way teaching, from the top down, from expert knowledge to ordinary and ‘diffuse’ knowledge: on the contrary, the landscape experience is the place where knowledge intersects, not only different disciplinary knowledge but also and first and foremost ‘environmental knowledge’ with scientific and technically elaborated knowledge. Obviously, this observation is not only valid in a positive sense. Most of the processes of landscape degradation or the worsening of environmental risks arise from the loss of centuries-old memories of wise and prudent use of the land, water and other environmental resources, from the laceration of local cultures, as well as from arrogance and insensitivity towards scientific indications and expert warnings. Hence the crucial importance of the contribution of local populations and actors to the knowledge, management and planning of P, strongly emphasised by the Convention.

If we tighten the relationship between P. and education, we cannot avoid facing what is perhaps the central challenge proposed by the CEP: on the one hand, the need to connect the holistic visions and system strategies on which the effectiveness of P. policies increasingly depend with the sectoral measures that arise or are specified in the various disciplinary fields; on the other hand, the need to coordinate the ‘regulatory’ knowledge that manifests itself at the various decision-making levels with the perceptions, expectations and awareness that assert themselves at the local level. It is a twofold challenge, revolving around two mutually irreducible concepts, each of which is reflected in the dictates of the Convention:

– the integration of the P. into any policy that may have a direct or indirect impact on the P. itself (art. 5d); which, in terms of training, implies the promotion of multi-disciplinary programmes for P. policies (art. 6Bb)

– the specialisation of training activities relating to the P., which implies the promotion of university courses that effectively and specifically approach the values of the P. (Art. 6Bc).

The tension between these two concepts was reaffirmed by the Committee of Ministers (Recommendations of 2008, II2.3) by placing the dual requirement for courses for specialists and non-specialists; in each case such as to ‘closely link landscape to sustainable development’. In an attempt to combine the two requirements, the opportunity has arisen within Uniscape to base specialisation not on selection and exclusion, but rather on the ‘focus’ to be attributed to each training programme. This should make it possible to adequately broaden the field of attention of teaching while concentrating teaching and research efforts on topics of particular interest for landscape protection and innovation.