{"id":10425,"date":"2014-02-25T17:36:30","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T17:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/?p=10425"},"modified":"2014-02-25T17:36:30","modified_gmt":"2014-02-25T17:36:30","slug":"the-landscape-architecture-of-maidan-nezalezhnosti-independence-square-kiev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/the-landscape-architecture-of-maidan-nezalezhnosti-independence-square-kiev\/","title":{"rendered":"The landscape architecture of Maidan Nezalezhnosti = Independence Square Kiev"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div id=\"attachment_10426\" style=\"width: 785px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/independence_square_kiev.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10426\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/independence_square_kiev.jpg\" alt=\"Independence Maidan Kiev\" width=\"775\" height=\"257\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10426\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/independence_square_kiev.jpg 775w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/independence_square_kiev-300x99.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/independence_square_kiev-768x255.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/independence_square_kiev-624x207.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 775px) 100vw, 775px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-10426\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Independence Maidan Kiev<\/p><\/div>Asked by a communist dictator to design the central space in a capital city what should a landscape architect do?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>go for the Baroque, as so many communist leaders did (left above)?<\/li>\n<li>spend on bling, as was done in Kiev? (below)<\/li>\n<li>keep the space clear, to facilitate future revolutions (right above)?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It was the &#8216;square&#8217;s&#8217; name which made me wonder about the alternatives. &#8216;Maidan&#8217;, I assume, is a Persian word which, I guess, was brought to Kiev by the Tartars. They were a Turkic people and the Turks, as former nomads, learned much from the urban civilisation of Persia (just as the Persians, also formerly nomadic, learned from the urban civilisation of Mesopotamia). See photos of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/05\/the-definition-of-landscape-urbanism\/\">Maidan in Isfahan<\/a> &#8211; it was a space used for markets, games of polo and military displays. The present square dates from after the Tartar period and took its present form after the Second World War. In 1919 it was <i>Soviet Square <\/i>and in 1935 it became <i>Kalinin Square.<\/i> The present name came with independence in 1991. Please correct me if I am wrong but I think the bling (fountains, planters etc) appeared after the Orange Revolution of 2004. [Note: one can&#8217;t help wondering if the re-design proposal for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/08\/the-landscape-architecture-of-taksim-gezi-meydani-park-or-square\/\">Gezi Square<\/a> is, in part, an idea for how to prevent public spaces being used by revolutionaries). If so, please could we know the designers&#8217; names.<br \/>\nShould the Maidan be re-designed to take account of the latest revolution?<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/independence_square_kiev_maidan.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/independence_square_kiev_maidan.jpg\" alt=\"independence_square_kiev_maidan\" width=\"775\" height=\"581\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-10428\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/independence_square_kiev_maidan.jpg 775w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/independence_square_kiev_maidan-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/independence_square_kiev_maidan-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/independence_square_kiev_maidan-624x468.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 775px) 100vw, 775px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Asked by a communist dictator to design the central space in a capital city what should a landscape architect do? go for the Baroque, as so many communist leaders did (left above)? spend on bling, as was done in Kiev? (below) keep the space clear, to facilitate future revolutions (right above)? It was the &#8216;square&#8217;s&#8217; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,23,28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10425"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}