She (Nature) is an eternal present. Past and future are unknown to her. The present is her eternity. She is beneficient. J.W. von Goethe Goethe is speaking about the ever-lasting value and importance of Nature. Even in today’s luminous, rushing and digital world, Goethe’s faithful idea and the theory of Christian Hirschfeld, which brought to life the 18th-century urban public park movement, represents a value. Though the citizens’ use and habits are varied in every age and region, society, the individuals need physical and spiritual recreation offered by urban parks. The overall goal of the research is to highlight the role of natural elements and urban landscape character in space composition means on the example of the two centuries old historic urban park in Budapest, the Városliget, one of the very first urban public parks. Main research questions: What are the main landscape and nature structures and elements that define the composition? What are the main changes in compositional means in the long evolution of the park in the stress of urban development and social change? Can we find universal design means for the general park use forms or does the local spirit play the dominant role in public park design? This study focuses on the composition means over time, in the transformation process of the Budapest Városliget, from the first landscaping and replantation of the swampy area in the outskirt of Pest town at turn of 18–19th century when Nature and her humanized garden and park forms became increasingly recognized as means and purposes of spiritual, physical and societal renewal. The research is based on analyses of ecological, landscape aspects and features, of social, public and political input into planning and building that affected the composition and the construction of the urban public park. The analyses focus on the significant momentums of park evolution, while observations focus on the relations between changing social and landscape aspects in the design and planning process.

The variety of forms of Medieval landscapes reflects the political and social situation of European territories in the period between the fifth and the fifteenth century. From a contemporary point of view, we are dealing with a number of distinct types of landscape objects in European areas, such as 1. Medieval fortresses (castles); 2. residential settlements, including cities, towns and villages; 3. abbeys and smaller monasteries; 4. churches in open landscapes and pilgrimage centres; 5. areas of agriculture; 6. garden compositions; 7. specifically Polish relics of the past such as early-Medieval gords.

The article is devoted to the ancient tradition in the European art and the impact of antiquity on our European identity. The issue of reception of ancient models in art, in particular in the architecture of the Middle Ages, thus the epoch that was chronologically closest to the heritage of the Imperium Romanum, has accompanied the author since the very beginning of her academic career. Such personal approach to the issue and strong belief about the significance of the accomplishments of ancient culture for the development of European artistic thought resulted in the fact that the author decided to come back to it. In spite of the passage of time, it is still a valid subject matter, consistently pursued by Polish and foreign researchers.

The definition of the ubiquitous in art idea of sacrum is always quite subjective. That’s why it should be always viewed through the prism of an individual and cultural themes that guided and shaped the author or the founder of a particular piece of art. Natural and scenic wealth of Silesia with the cultural background and the garden design dated back to the 19th century, is an excellent example of pluralism of sacrum, which in the area of a garden can be marked by a path, sculpture that is a symbol of the national power, by a garden itself as a gift and by the landscape in general.