The walking trees of Leeuwarden

August 8, 2022 3:17 AM

Moving 1,000 trees, made up of 60-70 native species, including alder, ash, elm, maple, oak and willow, planted in 800 wooden containers around the Dutch city of Leeuwarden, landscape architect Bruno Doedens and his longtime collaborator, the late Joop Mulder, want to show a vision of a greener future with their Bosk programme.
posted by Harald74 (4 comments total)

"The very shores are lined with oaks, which manifest an extraordinary eagerness to attain their growth: undermined by the waves or uprooted by the blasts, with their entwining roots they carry vast forests along with them, and, thus balanced, stand upright as they float along, while they spread afar their huge branches like the rigging of so many ships."

Thus Pliny writing 2000 years ago near abouts the same region. There were marvels in those days.
posted by BWA at 5:24 AM on August 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

Third Apparition

Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.

(Descends)

MACBETH

That will never be
Who can impress the forest, bid the tree
Unfix his earth-bound root? Sweet bodements! good!
Rebellion's head, rise never till the wood
Of Birnam rise, and our high-placed Macbeth
Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath
To time and mortal custom.
posted by doctornemo at 9:10 AM on August 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

That's lovely! I wish I knew someone on my own town council to wave it at. It's a fairly leafy town, but none of our trees are mobile.

If anyone's wondering about MIENSKIP in the banner at the top of link 2 ("100 DAYS OF PERFORMANCES, EXHIBITIONS AND MIENSKIP"), it's in Frisian not Dutch, and AFAICT it means "community".
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 11:27 AM on August 8, 2022

I think the idea closing of streets to traffic and planting trees to improve the city for the people actually living there is just a tad too abstract to be an easy sell. I remember seeing an old picture in the newspaper of one of the few pedestrian streets in my city, back from when it had car traffic, and I could feel the revulsion in my gut. However, I don't have a visceral reaction to the thought of making more pedestrian streets.

I imagine having an exhibition like this would be very useful in helping people imagine a better urban environment. The day after they would be all "where did all the lovely trees go?" and "why can't we have nice streets?"
posted by Harald74 at 3:59 AM on August 9, 2022