Munich, Germany. It was a birthday party, our children said. Actually it was rather a re-birth that was celebrated as a big public event, when the river Isar was re-naturalized within the urban area of Munich.
The river Isar is an element of the urban landscape in Munich that runs from South to North through the hole city. Many of the cycling path are in some way or the other connected to this green strip. On my way to school I cycled along the riverbank every morning. It was one straight path for kilometres. I took this shape of the river for granted, concrete walls on each side, a solid piece of water engineering, a canal more than a river.
However, once every so often a sudden melting of snow or heavy rainfalls in the Alps caused the water level to rise and brought severe damages along the riverbanks. In these events the Isar broke free from the straightjacket that it was put into for a few decades in its long geological history. Now this struggle is over. The city decided to give up the attempt to control the river. The canal walls were taken down and the river is put back into its original bed. Due to the slower pace of the stream and smoother transitions along the river banks people can swim in the water again. New/old flora creates a habitat for new/old fauna.
Similar efforts are now made in other parts of Germany where floods have had equally destructive impacts. Suddenly, engineers are searching for old maps and geological traces in order to find the original riverbeds. The idea of a critical reconstruction spread from architecture to larger scales of spatial planning.