Vatten, vandring, vila, vy och variation

The aim of the thesis is to describe the history of the spa park Ronneby Brunnspark, from the early 18th Century up until today, and to study the basic design principle as well as its realization, its design and design elements, during the late 20th Century. The licentiate thesis Water, Walk, Rest, View & Variation – the Design Principle of the Swedish Spa Park Ronneby Brunnspark consists of three reports, two articles and a concluding paper. Report 1 concerns the history of Ronneby Brunnspark (Jakobsson, A., 2000), report 2 is an historical documentation and inventory of the historic remnants within Brunnsskogen and report 3 is a management plan for the cultural reserve Ronneby Brunn. Article I studies the spa guest’s experience of time and space during the course of treatment and defines the different park spaces and the essential design elements through the spa guest’s movements and experiences. Article II describes the history of Ronneby Brunnspark through the landscape architects and gardeners, mainly Henry August Flindt and Henrik Madelung, who gave the design principle material form. The main conclusion is; the course of treatment is the key to understanding the design of the spa park. The different park spaces are defined mainly from the spa guest’s movements within the park as a whole and the course of treatment controlled their movements. The design elements within the park space Ronneby Brunnspark derive from the treatment’s demand for special functions: The suggested short walks back and forth, while drinking water, demands a smaller park space consisting of a short walk or promenade close to the well. The recommended amount of shadow while drinking the water creates a demand for trees above or close to the short walk, preferably rows of trees on each side of the walk. The recommended rest periods creates a demand for benches. The recommended walk after the last water glass demands a larger park space close to the short walk. In Ronneby this park space had a design that varied in relation to the shorter walk in terms of scale, vegetation and path layout. The design for this park pace, with winding paths and varied vegetation, derives from the aim of making the spa guest walk longer and from the fact that variation is somewhat recommended within the course of treatment. The designs for the public parks were probably the main source of inspiration. The recommended field excursions in the afternoons demand nearby sites of interest or a larger forest or park area for longer walks within the park space as a whole. In Ronneby Brunnspark the spa guest could either take walks in the “nature” of the old pasture areas, transformed into a forest called Brunnsskogen, or they could go to different places outside the spa, recommended by the tourist brochures. These exkursion destinations, near Ronneby, had a more nature-like appearance than the park areas within the spa. Especially viewpoints were highly recommended in brochures and the spa guests praised those places. The design of spa parks in general has a connection in some sense to the idea of paradise, but the design represents primarily a mix of inspiration from other spa parks, of design elements made necessary by the course of treatment and of the inspiration and ideas of the landscape architect and the gardener. The park spaces in Ronneby Brunnspark during the late 20th century can be summarized in three kinds of areas with increasingly higher degrees of nature experience and distance from the well; water drinking spaces, walking spaces and field excursion destinations. A basic design principle evolved mainly from the cure function as it is described in different park programmes for spas and treatment programmes. It also evolved from park ideals at the time, mainly from the design ideas of the public park. The design principle of Ronneby Brunnspark can be summarized with the five words water, walk, rest, view and variation.