Landscape Park of the Sečovlije Salt Pans, Piran (Slovenia)
Landscape Park of the Sečovlije Salt Pans, Piran (Slovenia) by the alt-Pans Landscape Park (Europa Nostra Medal 2003)
In 2003 the jury granted this award for the exemplary and sensitive revitalization of a cultural landscape. This included the return to facilities for traditional salt production technology, architectural restoration, and educational activities, all in close harmony with the natural environment.
This reserve is the biggest wetland on the coastline. In Lera, the northern part of the reserve, people use a 700-year-old method to harvest salt with wooden tools and look after the petola, which functions as a biofilter at the bottom of the salt pans. This ensures the salt remains separate from the silt from the sea and white and clean. The quality of the salt and fleur de sel, a fine upper layer in the ponds, is famous and beloved worldwide.
This is one of the last Mediterranean locations where salt making follows traditional techniques, assisted only by the sun, wind and labour. The long term vision of the Salt Pans Landscape Park is oriented first and foremost to restoration works which will help to preserve the existing ethnological heritage in the form of traditional salt making activities. The restoration of a traditional salt-pan house within the context of the preserved cultural landscape of traditional salt pans includes other buildings, bridges, docks and channels.
Brief analysis of the case:
The recovery of this cultural landscape has consisted of the restoration and reconstruction of the buildings and installations for the production of salt using the traditional materials and techniques already present in the complex. The material restoration of the complex has made it possible to recover the productive activity as well as to open the complex to visitors so that they can appreciate a cultural landscape that shows a symbiosis between man and nature. The intervention has involved the repair, consolidation and partly reconstruction of the structures with a compatible intervention at a material and character level that guarantees the durability and sustainability of the complex. The enhancement of the site has been carried out through interpretation, public visits and educational activities.