European Meeting Report '90

Previous Conditions

The realities that lead to the realization of the European Meeting of Landscape Architecture Students (EMLAS) were:

• The lack of information the Portuguese students faced on the intenational level - a very real problem in most participating countries;
• The approaching Europe '92 and the growing contacts with the East side countries;
• The will to widen a positive experience within the associations field for one year.

So the EMLAS goals were mainly:

• acquaintance among students about the situation in the educational, professional and associative field;
• the presentation of the Portuguese situation: education, profession, landscape;
• the presentation of our own associative experience, from the perspective association as a way of ensuring the continuity of a project;
• starting a discussion aiming at the creation of an international student association.

This way, we respectively proceeded to:

1. • Give full accomodation to the guests, as much as possible, provided by Portuguese colleagues;
   • Put up an international exhibition;
   • Lectures about these subjects by representatives from each country;
   • Several social activities.
2. • Guided visits to some of the most significant places in terms of landscape and gardening;
   • Lectures about the country, its landscape and the development of the profession in Portugal
   • An exhibition of national scholar works.
3. • A meeting for the presentation of the several different situations in terms of associativism; Several working sessions. A General Assembly in the end.

The result from the first three items was an enormous cultural enrichment on both sides - hosts and guests - and the establishment of contacts and friendship relation.

The last item exceeded all the organizers expectations. In fact the enthusiasm and interest of several representatives, their will and power of initiative allowed this discussion to be taken further away than previously planned.

The presence of the L.A. professional international organizations (IFLA and ELEE) on a participative and supportive attitude was not surprising.

The working sessions succeeded each another, using up all the free time; and all the available spaces concurring with the social activities. They were divided in discussion groups working simultaneously or alternatively, non-stop until the General Assembly closed the working sessions.

This resulted being the European Meeting Statement, where it is clearly expressed by all the students to proceed with this project. The nomination of two representatives of this meeting for each country also took place, as well as the definition of their duties.

Some more specific documents were produced on each working group - the conclusions of which were presented to the General Assembly and questionaires aiming at the recollection and organization of specific information respecting the discussed themes.

Finally, some pre-candidates to organize the next representative meeting came up, and the deadline for a final presentation of candidates was decided for the 1st of June '90.

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