Haithabu, Germany

Ideas Competition for Danewerk Haithabu

The German-Danish Euro Regional Park Danewerk-Haithabu Schleswig-Holstein

The Viking metropolis of Haithabu and the fortification of Danewerk in the ice-age landscape of Schleswig-Holstein form the core of the German–Danish Euro Regional Park proposed here in the landscape of the Schleswig Isthmus. They are culturally and historically unique archaeological monuments with their own characteristics and legendary history. The classification of the monuments in the list of the cultural-historical UNESCO World Heritage Sites requires a new view that is not too constricted by the perspectives of local politics in the formerly disputed landscape between Hamburg and Jutland. The previous adversaries are now parts of the European Union; especially the people in the old border areas emphasise the regionally based friendship between the partly bilingual residents on both sides of the European regions and countries of Denmark and Germany. The future handling of the decaying fortification of the Danewerk and the location of Haithabu, which was internationally significant settlement during Viking times, hold the possibility of becoming a living symbol for historical changes and a far-sighted interpretation of the future by highlighting the relics and wide-ranging resonance in the landscape. The long-term proposal for slowly and sustainably developing the very diverse landscape of the moraines, moorlands and river meadows influenced by the ice age in the broader environment of the archaeological monuments is to designate it as the Euro Regional Park. It puts the visible and now just barely or unrecognisable changes of the structures that have influenced the landscape in the past centuries, as well as the continuously adapting and exploring view of the future for this space into the focus when examining how to approach the traditional heritage. Moreover, the objective of the presented approach is to make it possible to see and experience the structures and their history, as well as the integration of the area into the tourist and local infrastructure. When the perception stops, the connection with the past is broken and the concept of the future loses its creative foundation in the heritage of its ancestors. The inherent power of the present for change loses the creative options of design available to human beings without the respective view of the future and the past. What both vector directions of time have in common is an increasing darkness of insight as the horizon of observation escapes. The myths of the past and future touch each other in the infinite, and the reverberations of the imagination about the distant in the present is a resonance from the darkness of what we do not know.

The experience of Haithabu’s landscape, which was formed during the ice age, and the historic idea of the fortifications that correspond with the natural world in the landscape will allow time and space to become increasingly tangible when the reverberations of the ages become a contextual and conceptual component in the future landscape development of the Schleswig Isthmus with the proposed concept of the locally assigned resonance area or resonance landscape.

On a small scale, the resonance area and landscape reflect the known and suspected anthropogenic changes from the history of the landscape, the fateful and close connection between the people and the factors of the natural landscape, as well as the history of the people and their nations. In addition to the beauty of the natural surroundings, it is also an individual response to the perpetual questions about from where and to where. It is the acceptance of the myths, the findings of science and the ars faciendi of the relics and artefacts, as well as the speculations about the future, that attract interested individuals, enrich the programme and distinguish the character of the German-Danish Euro Regional Park.

In addition, the park is a place of the future. New trail connections created gradually according to the proposed long-term plan border and cross the park and its landscapes. These resonance trails are reflected in the strategic idea of the defensive wall from Treenemarsch to Windebyer Noor and make the area accessible for hikers and bicyclists in its course on alternate sides of the Danewerk wall. The new trails avoid contact with traffic routes as far as possible and lead to outstanding places, offers and sights in the Euro Regional Park. Implementation of the trails will create a number of loops allowing people to circle and explore the park on foot and via bicycle with various routes. For example, the lines of a trail will be staked off and marked in public, temporary campaigns. The liming of the tree trunks that stand on the bends of the lines could be the first of such events. Once the first resonance trail has been marked and an access route for the public has been secured from the owners of the property, the first German-Danish Viking Marathon can take place on the loop of the Danewerk resonance trail between Hollingstedt and Haithabu within the scope of a Viking Day, for example. Extensive, long-terms projects, such as the design of the resonance trails and landscapes, obviously require more detailed planning and localisations. They are to be understood as examples that are intrinsic to the concept in the plan. In the sense of temporary actions and the encouragement of a seasonal event, the implementation of the concept component of resonance is an open-process proposal, yet result-oriented.

According to the future formulations of content, the resonance landscapes are oriented upon the objectives of developing the Euro Regional Park, the respective landscape circumstances of the existing biogeographic specifications, the current and changeable prevailing use and the participation of the owners and population. The availability, funding requirements and maintenance of the changed land uses are conceivable in a step-by-step approach and with the procurement of EU development funds, as well as through the substitution of existing agricultural subsidies, for example. Compensation for the economic requirements of the affected farmers could be achieved with the support of corresponding subsidy programmes of the EU. The subsidization of production will be replaced through new ways of promoting the maintenance of the landscape in the park: the farmer as the conservator of the park and the landscape. The future cultivation of the park and the revenues connected with fee-based offers will be carried out in and through a German–Danish Euro Regional Park Cooperative that still must be established and in which the property owners will hold a significant stake. The headquarters of the cooperative is planned in Klein Dannewerk at a proposed expansion of the Danewerk Museum.

Examples of provisional theme sketches for the proposed resonance landscapes that are not specific to property:

– Wilderness (succession areas with the objective of the climax stage of the forest communities)

– Open grove areas with grazing by old breeds of domestic animals such as Skudde sheep and oxen (generous open landscape corridors along the embankment of the Danewerk, can be exposed by clearing the space in front of suitable areas of the fortification)

– Restructuring of agricultural use with reference to historic farming as exhibition and experimental cultivation with marketing of products within the scope of the park cooperative

– Restructuring of agricultural use under the theme of the future of farming (ecological small-scale farming that is not oriented upon profit and as an illustrative object for fellow urbanites)

– Landscape park Lake Dannewerk – Haithabu (extensive landscape park in the core zone of the Euro Regional Park)

– Meadow-countryside park – Rheider Au, Gross Rheide (open meadow landscape, pasture with observation tower – Mühlenhaus)

– Meadow landscapes-river meadows (Rheider Au , Hübyer Feld, Ostheritageck, Gross Hüttener Au and Klein Hüttener Au)

– Lakeside resonance landscapes (Schlei Fjord, Selker Noor, Haddebyer Noor and Windebyer Noor)

In the course of the trail for the Danewerk from Hollingstedt to Kochendorf, other new offers will be proposed in addition to the existing attractions for the visitors to the park such as the Viking Village and Haithabu Museum, the Danewerk Museum. Information pavilions with a bicycle hire service (Viking Bike) are proposed at the outer ends of the park in the west and the east. In the area of the entrenchment to the south of Ellingstedt at the meadow-pasture park across from the Mühlenhaus observation tower, a Danish –German Community House with a garden and grass lawn has been planned. The community house can be leased for private and group-related events and parties. Far away from the villages and farms, this will offer the opportunity for social activities under the theme of the Danish–German friendship and with the use of the gardens and the spacious landscape of the meadow-pasture park. The garden and house in the landscape of the Danewerk will be operated by the cooperation, which will take care of catering for the events, and envisaged in a robust architectural style. An additional bicycle station here also allows the leasing or returning of a Viking Bike at all of the park’s attractions. In the area of the gravel pit between Klein Dannewerk and Kurburg, a simple camping ground will be offered with a mains water supply, toilet and barbecue site for the bicycle tourists, hikers and military air-spotters. The latter will find a place for their passion due to the wilderness at the exposed local burial mounds facing the airport at its intersection with the Oxen Trail.

In contrast to the moraine landscape between Haddebyer Noor and Windebyer Noor, the offers of the Klein Dannewerk in the west reinforce the simpler characteristics of the moorland landscape and open up the attractiveness of the park to the west, to the meadows of the Treene. The supra-regional connection of the trails to the western parks is ensured by the Eider–Treene–Sorge Trail, the Viking–Friesen Trail and the Historic South Tour. The Oxen Trail connects in Dannewerk. In Klein Dannewerk, the above-mentioned expansion option of the Danewerk Museum with headquarters of the Park Cooperative is proposed. Due to its exposure, the expansion area will have a view across the southern area in front of the western Danewerk and up to the Mühlenhaus observation tower. A direct visual orientation exists in the north–east to the eastern Waldemar’s Wall and to Thyraburg in the landscape park of the Klein Dannewerk Lake. A parking site for cars and buses in the area of the new section of the museum, accessible over the motorway exit Schleswig Süd (South), has also been planned here. The landscape around Klein and Gross Dannewerk forms the point of intersection for the three resonance trails of the western park that are planned for the long- term. The extensive landscape park Dannewerk Lake–Haithabu is located between the villages of Dannewerk, Friederichsberg and Kroy and connects with Busdorf and Haithabu. With the centre of the Thyraburg and the restored Dannewerk Lake, the new park that has been designed as an archaeological park and has a variety of offers for supra-local recreation is a centrally located attraction within the Euro Regional Park that has a stimulating emanation into the surrounding villages. Next to the motorway at the intersection of the Nordwall, two landmarks facing each other at the intersection of the motorway with the Kograben as a widely visible sign of the Euro Regional Parks is planned.

On the resonance trail to the east of the Haddebyer Noor, visitors reach the eastern end of the Danewerk near Kochendorf across from Eckernförd. Depending on the chosen trail, this is where hikers cross the various resonance landscapes and nature reserves. In addition to the burial mounds, rune stones and a burial place of the megalithic culture, they will find additional camping opportunities at the Windebyer Noor near Kochendorf that include a bicycle stations and refreshments. Extensive hiking through the landscapes and natural areas of the German- Danish Euro Regional Park makes it possible to spend a number of days and engage in varied activities in the ice-age landscape of the Schleswig Isthmus. The amplitude of the resonance for the Danewerk archaeological monument in the surrounding landscape corresponds with the significance of the provenance for the supra-regional place that has been maintained through the UNESCO cultural heritage.

The decaying structures of the Danewerk have gaps in their length that could be closed through contemporary interventions in various ways. Both temporary and meaningful lasting interventions are conceivable here. They would expand access to the archaeological monument and convey a narration about the landscape and the people. The interventions imagined here would essentially not respond to the monument in a historic-nostalgic manner but rather in terms of form and aesthetics. The visual echo would represent a supplement to the archaeological research and its conveyance as a museum. An echo can be seen in a reaction to the landscape, the gardens or even in temporary events that occur in the course of the proposed open-process approach – an echo of interested persons, participants, supporters and those who are casually involved. Another echo can identify loose ends of the work through architectural–artistic elements and be based on the theme of the wall. It is also imaginable that sculptures reflecting the aesthetics of the script on the rune stones that are distributed along the entire course of the wall, as in a mysterious tale, will provide surprises as they accompany visitors in their explorations.

Europaconcorsi Beta

Ideas Competition for Danewerk Haithabu