Zprávy památkové péče 2016, 76(5):483-496

Spa parks. Composed therapeutic landscape of three spa locations from the 19th and early 20th century

Lubomír Zeman

Modifications in the landscapes around spa towns are among the most extensive in the Czech Republic. This type of landscape is characterized by the high quality and great variety of its main functions embedded into the natural environment. The overall structure of urban and rural spa areas combines architecture, urbanism, landscape architecture, and landscape modification in a unique way that integrates the surrounding countryside into the built environment, both functionally and visually. To make the spas more pleasant, spa parks, gardens and alleys, and colonnades under the open sky were built in urban areas. The area around the spa units, designed to be reminiscent of a wilderness area, was interwoven with walking paths connected by visual axes that enabled composed views onto individual dominant features of noble residences, water surfaces and dramatic water features, romantic rock outcroppings, and individual or groups of trees. Lookout points looking over spa towns were sites where numerous stops, pavilions, and observation towers were later added. The urban and non-urban landscape was thus mutually intermingled to offer places to linger and relax with spa treatments according to the financial means and preferences of visitors. Creating impressive sceneries as well as unique units and compositions with intentionally interrelated compositions of natural and structural elements would ensure an appropriate therapeutic environment. Strolls along forest paths were an important part of spa therapy. The landscape around spa towns and therefore formed precisely for the purpose of treating patients utilizing physical movement, hydrotherapy in open nature, and trips to romantic and dreamy destinations. The medicinal tool itself, of course, is not merely walking and movement, but is also the actual effects of the environment, as recently demonstrated by scientific methods. Natural phenomena acting on crustal faults is what provides the genuine therapeutic effect; this is precisely what makes a normal landscape therapeutic. The area around spa locations along with its spa buildings is thus considered a "therapeutic environment". Detailed surveys managed to more closely decipher the origin and evolution of spa parks in their natural landscape modifications, but also in the formalized gardens of our most important spa towns. In contrast to deeply rooted assumptions, our views of the origins of the spa parks in Mariánské Lázně, Františkovy Lázně, and even in Karlovy Vary have thus changed. Valuable natural landscape modifications are also to be found in other spa locations such as Lázně Teplice, Lázně Libverda, and Luhačovice, as well as Lázně Jeseník in Moravia.
The therapeutic landscape forming an important and specific part of the spa environment has therefore became a prominent element in an upcoming serial transnational nomination of The Great Spas of Europe on the UNESCO World Heritage List, where the Czech Republic is represented by the spa towns of the West Bohemian spa triangle - Karlovy Vary, Mariánské Lázně and Františkovy Lázně. Spa parks and the therapeutic landscape of spa towns thus rank among the exceptional works of natural landscaping in the Czech Republic.

Keywords: composed landscape; spa; therapeutic landscape; healing environment; breaks in the earth's crust; Karlovy Vary; Mariánské Lázně; Františkovy Lázně; UNESCO

Published: December 1, 2016  Show citation