Modernist Reinventions of the Rural Landscapes

This project deals with rural landscapes produced by large-scale agricultural development and colonisation schemes planned in the twentieth century throughout Europe and beyond.

Conceived in different political and ideological contexts, such schemes were pivotal to nation-building and state-building policies, and to the modernisation of the countryside. They provided a testing ground for the ideas and tools of agronomists, environmental and social scientists, architects, engineers, planners, landscape architects and artists, which converged around a shared challenge. Their implementation produced new rural landscapes which have seldom been considered as a transnational research topic.

MODSCAPES aims to raise awareness of this largely underestimated shared cultural heritage which stands today as tangible evidence of recent European history. The project combines research-driven and bottom-up participatory activities. These are based on the collection, processing, elaboration and critical discussion of visual data and multiple narratives concerning 13 case studies located in seven EU and three non-EU neighbouring countries.