Germany
Design philosophy
The design by French landscape architect Gilles
Vexlard won the 1st prize in the 1995 international
design competition. Despite the very individual and
distinctive approach with its characteristic formal
language, the design concept was very sensitive to
the site’s conditions and its cultural landscape tradi-
tions. The design was also very persuasive in its
details. The jury correctly commented that:
The work develops its formal characteristics
out of the historic field boundaries and the
prevailing wind directions. The formative frame-
work of light oak and pine forests, as volumes
structuring and directing space, is supplemen-
ted by smaller groves and narrow plot hedges
providing what Vexland called ‘visual distance
markers’. These elements, in conjunction with
the wide, grassy heath areas and meadows,
provide a coherent ecological approach to this
space. The path systems are overlaid onto this
vegetal structure, the antithesis of an English
landscape park, as an independent network.
A band of activity areas (sports areas, pocket
parks) runs through the new exhibition centre
connecting the urban areas and the wider
landscape in an aesthetic and functional way.^9
The newly-built landscape park is very impressive.
A piece of designed Munich landscape has been
created which appears somewhat new and seem-
ingly unused, yet its expansive open spaces convey
a strong sense of freedom and the need for rapid
movement. ‘Who knows how people will move
around in 50 years' time?’ This question was asked
by Gilles Vexlard, while walking through the park,
and it challenges us to think.
The scale and the relationship between one person
and 300ha of space are definitive for Vexlard. He
describes the landscape park as a project between
a ‘sprint and a marathon’.
In order to explain the park’s very consistently
designed details, it is important to present the hier-
archical layers of the park concept, as developed by
Gilles Vexlard:
TopographyÆ Landscape and green structures
Æ Pathways.
First, Vexlard designed the terrain and topography
of the park, then he structured it with green ele-
ments. Thus, the pathways in the park were laid
through the previously designed landscape at the
very end. Gilles Vexlard compares them with the
scenographic route of a camera moving through the
landscape, which offers the park users three or four
different landscape situations on their walk, which
they can choose to examine and explore.
