What is WikiAllee?
Wikiallee is a collaborative web space, seeking to build among all, a catalogue of the Allées –tree line planted roads- in Europe. The website allows you to upload your case study specifying location and their specific characteristics thanks to a technical data sheet with photographs and sketches.
It is a project dealing with recognition of landscape heritage, which characterizes and gives identity to the European territory; driven by the collaboration among the Landscape Office of the Colegio de Arquitectos de Cataluña and the Villa LeNôtre program (French School of Architecture of Versailles- Marseille, Val'hor professionel du végétal and CA île de France mécénas).

A bit of history ...
Allées - Tree avenues in landscape –are a cultural landscape archetype, now obsolete, but once a widespread landscape feature across Europe. In 2007, they were identified by the Council of Europe - European Landscape Convention Cep-CDPATEP, 5th Council of Europe- as a cultural asset meriting conservation.
Allées are a characteristically European feature that we should recognize as a European Landscape Archetype, dating back from nearly 500 years, since their first appearances in the Italian renaissance gardens of the first half of the 16th century. However, it is only when they are “imported” to France that this public approach is considered.
Nowadays those “allées” are inextricably linked to the formal French and soon tree avenues will accompany fortifications until the 19th century, when landscape is transformed completely and the road archetype conquers the main European countries.
This model will spread and adapt to national and regional requirement, adopting diversity of variables for the same archetype
(Divergence in the selection of trees, in the planting strategy, or associated symbolic values​​...) before finally succumbing to the severity of contemporary safety road legislation.
Since the 80, systematic tree slaughter was envisaged at different rate depending on national legislation, in order to improve road safety, increase speed rates and at the same time update road layouts with new widths and dimension to better suit the car mobility though European the territory.
This website attempts to offer a virtual ground where to catalogue all kinds of allées – from monumental avenues to scarce vestiges of tree lined roads in Europe.
A strategy for a bottom up collective memory servicing the recognition of a common cultural heritage that knows no boundary but needs your contributions to make the platform and thus reconstruct the variable image of the tree avenues as landscape archetype.

Promoted by:

With the collaboration of:

Design and development of:
Marina Cervera Alonso de Medina for Vil.la LeNôtre 2017, Versailles International Residence of Landscape Architects.

Team:
Eli Altes
Andrea Ghuisu
Sabrina Scala
Carlos Suarez