Landskapsarkitektens yrkesroll i Sverige och Spanien : en jämförelsestudie mellan svensk och spansk landskapsarkitektur med platsexempel från Stockholm och Barcelona

Sammanfattning: Landscape architect is a profession that withholds varying tasks inside countries and between countries. In many countries the landscape architect profession does not exist. Spain is a country where the landscape architect profession is not recognized, and the professions that work with landscape architecture are architects, engineers, biologists and agronomists. "Paisajista", in English "Landscaper," is in Spain a common name for those who design gardens and parks. Sweden is one of the countries with most landscape architects due to its population and the profession is well established. Also in Sweden, there are many people who do not have a clear picture about the profession and several times the knowledge of landscape architects goes to waste. In my thesis based on location study I reason about similarities and differences in the Spanish and Swedish landscaping to investigate if the landscape architect profession establishment have had impact on landscape architecture. The thesis is based on literature reviews, interviews and site studies in Stockholm and Barcelona. In order to define the work, three sites for each city were chosen, which were divided into categories; park, squares and streets. As background material, studies and comparisons between the history of landscape architecture and town planning in Stockholm and Barcelona were made. Politics have had a strong influence on town planning in Stockholm and Barcelona during the 20th century. After the Spanish Civil War, Spain became a fascist dictatorship. During the dictatorship years, very little was made in architecture and urban planning, and many cities decayed. When Spain once again became a democracy, there was a lot of energy and desire to take hold of decay and to make cities to presentable public places again. In Sweden functionalism ruled the social planning and helped to shape the welfare state. The ”Stockholm school of Landscape design” became famous international, and still influence the landscape architecture. Briefly, in Sweden it have been a tradition of using the nature as a base and take advantage of existing qualities, while it in Spain had been made a clearer distinction between city and nature. It is more common that the architect has a project management role in Spain than in Sweden, which makes it easier to implement design concepts. One conclusion is that it is possible to see if a landscape has had the responsible role of the shaping and also in which Spanish projects the architects received help from plant experts. But other conclusions are that a number of things influences the shaping. Extension of urbanization, science, culture, religion and climate have in different ways influenced the social outlook and view of nature in Sweden and Spain. That in turn have influenced the possibilities for the development of the landscape architect profession in both countries.