Modernism, Modernization and the Rural Landscape

Abstract

This if the book of proceedings of the MODSCAPES Conference held in Tartu, Estonia, June 11-13, 2018. MODSCAPES Modernist Reinventions of the Rural Landscape (HERA Call “Uses of the past” – grant 5087-00420A) compared a number of agricultural colonisation projects implemented during the 20th century across Europe (and beyond). Conceived in different political and ideological contexts, these projects contributed to the consolidation of individual nation-states, building new rural landscapes. Rural modernisation provided a common testing ground for agronomists, politicians, social and environmental scientists, as well as architects, engineers, landscape architects and artists. The conference opened up the research topic to the scholarly community, allowing a cross-disciplinary debate, including under-represented topics and disciplines, as a constructive contribution to the future research agenda.