The Landscape Park, Riem
‘We do not just observe these things, we are in
these things’, says Vexlard. With this, he clarifies
the difference between his idea of the English land-
scape garden, which presents the citizens with dis-
tant landscape elements along their route, and his
landscape park, which allows people to approach
their landscape, to go inside it and finally to become
a part of it.
The landscape architect’s concept integrated vari-
ous recreational attractions, an artificial 14ha bath-
ing lake, a 27m-high sledding hill and an 18m-high
viewing hill, both the latter made from excavated
material from the site. The bathing lake and the hills
were completed in the second phase of construc-
tion and are open to use by local residents and city
dwellers alike. The lake has four different types of
edge: an urban quay to the north, a finely pebbled
bathing beach and sunbathing meadows to the
east, a soft and natural-looking edge with fields of
perennial wildflower to the south and a wide belt
with cat-tails and reeds along the western edge. In
this area, the path becomes a boardwalk over the
water. People can experience the biotope without
damaging the vegetation with their feet.^10
The difficult task for the participants in the com-
petition for the German national garden exhibition,
theBundesgartenschau in 2005, was to design an
exhibition concept that would present an indepen-
dent idea which combined and harmonised with the
park already built by Gilles Vexlard. In addition to the
areas dedicated to the Bundesgartenschau within
the landscape park, further building plots for tempo-
rary exhibits had to be made available later.The most convincing solution to these demands
was developed by the Munich landscape architect
Prof. Rainer Schmidt, whose design won 1st prize.
His design was inspired by microscopic images
of the plant world. Exciting spaces such as the
'Cell Garden' with over-sized ‘cells’ made of gravel
berms, or the ’Leaf Garden’ with a pathway system
based on the vein structure within a leaf could be
experienced. Embedded within the formal language
of the landscape park, the gardens were further
enhanced by the lower-lying ‘Sunken Garden’ and
the ‘Parallel Garden’. These ‘enhanced the language
of Vexlard’s park in an almost poetic way and with an
astonishing lightness’.^11 While the Cell and the Leaf
Gardens were temporary, the Sunken and Parallel
Gardens remained after the exhibition, as part of
the landscape park. Within the Sunken Garden, the
concept of ‘cell‘ images can be found once again.
Under the title of ‘Gardens of Powers’, layouts
were created based upon a spatial interpretation of
microscopic photos enlarged to varying powers of
ten. This micro/macro theme fits in with the main
Bundesgartenschau theme, which is ‘Changes of
Perspective’.