Berlin has more of a graffiti ‘problem’ than London. So much of the city is so dull that local artists are taking the problem into their own hands. But look at this: Sudgelande Natur Park, along with many other intelligent uses of public art, has let local artists adorn the ugly hunks of concrete left by engineers and architects. [Images courtesy Olivier Six and Jens Uwe Liepelt]
We are grateful to Grün Berlin for the recently uploaded photographs of Sudgelande are also pleased to have a Head Gardener’s Comment. We look forward to having Visitor Comments and Head Gardener’s comments throughout our Garden Finder Section. It had details of 2,440 gardens on 10th December and has 2,442 places on 11th December. New entries are always welcome and we worry that some countries (eg Israel) are seriously under-represented.
nice initiative !
a lovely unpretentious park. it seens to share a lot of ideas with Emscher Park in the Ruhr. do you know which was built first?
The Powerhouse Museum is an old powerstation which has been incorporated into a park setting. The design philosophy of the museum integrates part of the building’s history as a derelict building, after its original use ceased (a period in which it acquired its own graffiti)into its new incarnation as an ‘edgy’ anti-establishment experimental art venue.
[http://www.brisbanepowerhouse.org/files/documents/BP_History.pdf]
The Duisburg Nord design (which is part of Emscher Park) dates from 1991 and Sudgelande from 1996. See
http://www.gardenvisit.com/garden/duisburg_nord_landschaftspark
http://www.gardenvisit.com/garden/sudgelande_nature_park
Both projects are somewhat in the spirit of Richard Haag’s 1975 Gas Works Park in Seattle ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_Works_Park) and, I think from an earlier date, the work by Land Use Consultants (LUC) reclaiming the mining waste tips in Stoke on Trent (UK). LUC was founded by an environmental pioneer: Max Nicholson and had a creative thinker in Cliff Tandy. Their work contrasts with that of Brian Hackett, who wrote a book on Land Reclamation which showed how industrial sites could and should be reclaimed as productive agricultural land. He did not seem to see that they could be sites of historical, ecological and visual interest. It is a topic which merits more historical investigation, which would involve the history of industrial archaeology.
One of the most famous sites to be reclaimed from nature is the twelfth century temple complex Angkor Wat in Cambodia. [http://www.angkorwhat.net/news/angkor-wat-videos.html] It is reputed that the complex was sacked by the Thais in 1431 and abandoned in 1432. In 1860 Angkor Wat was brought to world attention by French explorer and naturlist Henri Mouhot, and an extensive period of restoration began.
The temple Ta Prohm has been preserved as an example of what “a tropical forest will do to an architectural monument when the protective hands of humans are withdrawn.”
[http://www.sacredsites.com/asia/cambodia/angkor_wat.html]
The complex is surrounded by a wall, open ground and a 190m wide moat. Angkor Wat was established as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1992. I have included the link to a translation of Maurice Glaize’s 1944 guide book. [http://www.theangkorguide.com/] Enjoy!
I have not been there but rather wish the whole Angkor site had been ‘conserved’ in the manner of Ta Prohm. As the guidebook notes ‘it was an inspired decision’ http://www.gardenvisit.com/garden/angkor_wat
It troubles me that one of the most important archaeological sites in Rome is in such a dreadful visual condition. http://www.gardenvisit.com/garden/emperors_palace-flavian_palace_palatine_hill It looks much better in old engravings, before the archaeologists got at it.
There is a great need for landscape architects to become involved with archaeological sites. Circumstances will be different in each case but I have visited many places where the emphasis should be on conservation. Excavations can be damaging and reconstructions of the type Saddam Hussein ‘committed’ at Babylon should be on ‘new land’ – never on the ‘old land’. http://www.gardenvisit.com/garden/babylon_ancient_city
You have highlighted an interest conundrum! The issue of reconstructions arises often in built heritage. However, I think you have hit on the nub of the problem. For example, reconstruction of a building on a site after it has been damaged in a recent conflict, is quite a different proposition to reconstruction of a building on an site archeological site. This is particularly so, when much of the reconstruction rests on conjecture.