Energy for the Landscape

Energy has been a driver of change for the landscape, from steam power, leading to woods and forests being exploited as fuel, to the first industrial revolution, when hydraulic works for “domesticating nature” represented nothing more than the adoption of incremental measures to create local energy efficiency in agriculture. The situation has not changed much in the current historical period, characterized by profound climate change: we continue to produce equally profound interventions. Today it is necessary to ensure that the current malfunctioning of the landscape neither becomes stable nor assumes proportions that can no longer be modified, losing that flexibility necessary to the life of the landscape. Some national and international projects are experimenting with this new approach, demonstrating how energy and its technologies can, in turn, become the “materials” and “structure” of a new landscape from the physical and symbolic points of view.