Peter Latz receives the prestigious Europa Nostra Award 2025

The European Commission and Europa Nostra are thus honoring Latz's decades-long commitment to transforming industrial wastelands into public, ecological and culturally significant spaces.

His best-known project, the Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park, is exemplary of this approach: a unique cultural landscape was created on the site of the disused steelworks, which, according to Latz, was not intended to be a harmonious ideal landscape along the lines of English or French gardens. The original character was not to be denied, but consciously taken up as a legacy of industrial culture. Prof. Peter Latz carefully redesigned the derelict ironworks site from an ecological point of view and refrained from creating a perfectly secluded green space. Instead, he created the conditions for a biotope that would slowly develop on its own without external influences. The revitalization of the Emscher from a previously toxic cesspool is representative of this. Prof. Peter Latz used the complex industrial structures to create a multi-layered park design in which he treated the buildings and facilities and the site's past with care. Due to its outstanding garden landscape design, the Duisburg Nord Landscape Park is now a protected garden monument.

Following his Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park project, Prof. Peter Latz realized other important projects in Turin, Saarbrücken and Luxembourg, among others. He has taught at universities in Kassel and Munich as well as at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. His publications have significantly shaped the international understanding of sustainable landscape architecture.

The prize is part of the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards, which will be presented in 2025 to 30 outstanding projects from 24 countries. They are co-funded by the European Commission as part of the Creative Europe program. A total of 251 applications from 41 countries were submitted.

Cecilia Bartoli, President of Europa Nostra, said: “These inspiring initiatives show how cultural heritage can act as a force for positive change in Europe - for cohesion, sustainability and creativity.”

The award ceremony will take place on October 13, 2025 in Brussels as part of the European Cultural Heritage Summit.

Public online voting for the “Public Choice Award 2025” will start at the same time.

You can vote at: vote.europanostra.org

Further information on the award can be found at: www.europeanheritageawards.eu