Bonigen Alpabzug

What is urban landscape and what is public realm?

This is a September 2013 view of main street in the center of Bonigen, a Swiss town of roughly 2,000 people.  It is a town that has been for centuries.

Every summer the Bonigen farmers take their cows on a journey to the high Alp ‘pastures’.  The above view shows the festival of the cows’ return journey (Alpabzug) from the high Alps.  The cows and other grazing animals are feted.  Plants and flowers make up head dresses for the cows.  And all the residents come to cheer for them as they are paraded down main street.

The urban landscape, the public realm overflows with landscape and agricultural realities–the realities of inter-relationships among people, plants, animals and landscape.