The Fourth International Hiking Villages Symposium - a review

Art, culture and landscape were the defining themes of the Fourth International Hiking Villages Symposium of the European Hiking Villages in Lech am Arlberg. Exciting lectures, committed group discussions and informative project reviews formed the sophisticated program of the thoroughly successful event. A productive working session set the course for the future of the initiative.

Members and stakeholders of the European Hiking Villages met already on September 21 at the Hotel Gotthard for a working session. There, central decisions concerning the territorial protection, the organizational development of the European Hiking Villages, the marketing concept and the participant acquisition for 2017 were taken. A village tour with the former tourism director of Lech, Hubert Schwärzler, put the entertaining ending point of the opening day.

Discussions and lectures

Landscape architects, artists and tourism experts attended the second symposium day. Dr. Monika Gamper (Project Agency Origamo), DI Andreas Winkler (Winkler Landschaftsarchitektur), Daniel Nikolaus Kocher (Artistic Director of Der Grüne Ring), Germana Nagler (Lech Zürs Tourismus) and Tourism Director Hermann Fercher presented extraordinary tourist landscape art projects and reported on opportunities, dangers and obstacles in the implementation of artistic landscape interventions. They all followed the critical and reflective questions of a discussion forum under the direction of the former Tyrolean environmental attorney DI Sigbert Riccabona.

Hiking in artistic landscapes

The Fourth International Hiking Villages Symposium ended with the visit of the Grünen Rätsel Ring, which illustrated an exemplary, fascinating realization of an exciting landscape art concept along a theme trail, and a visit to the last sculptural witness of Antony Gormley ‘s landscaping installation “Horizon Field” at the Kriegeralpe.