State Garden Show Wernigerode 2006

The starting point were 7 historic fish ponds on the outskirts of Wernigerode, which were forgotten, incoherent and squeezed between industries, commercial areas, large housing estates and allotments. In the central area was the district building yard on an approx. 7 m high building rubble dump.
The design uses the potential of the 7 ponds and connects them with a 1 km long footbridge, the "Fishwalk", to a coherent pond chain, the backbone of the State Garden Show. Water stations, the "follies", are arranged along the footbridge to stage the element of water. Thus the ponds are made experiencable again, the visitors are led to them.

Because of the great success of the garden show in the after-use in almost complete equipment of the city as a citizen's park Wernigerode continues.

As a "mineral gorge", the "fishwalk" cuts into the landfill body. The region around Wernigerode is considered by experts to be Germany's geological square mile due to the richness of different rock formations. The "Geological Window" in the "Mineral Gorge", lovingly erected by geologists in weeks of detailed work, shows the rock sequence and stratification from the Harz foreland to the Brocken as a model.

A "Garden Ribbon" frames the fence meadow, an open and wide meadow space, slightly inclined towards the city, which takes the existing tree island in its center. This romantic grove is staged as a "magic grove" with a shiny framing of perforated metal.

The garden ribbon loops, as a sequence of 40 different gardens, along the ponds, separated by walls of colored textile fabric. Here, the great variety of themed gardens becomes a promenade, the garden ribbon inviting visitors to window shop.

The "recycling gardens" are a special feature. Building and demolition materials taken from the site are combined with one tree species each - "Magnolias on Steel", "Asphalt Crushers", "Birches on the Roof", "Blood on Cinders", "Mountain Idyll"- to form elements of the garden design.

The curved, scenic promenade seeks out the quiet places of the garden show, forming the introverted counterpart to the straightforward, extroverted "Fishwalk". In this way, a modern park with a clear, coherent character is created through transformation at a neglected peripheral location. The result is a balancing act between show and sustainable use of regional characteristics. The materials used make an important contribution to this: Harz limestone as filling material for the gabions, as armourstone or path construction material. Steel as edging for paths and wall cheeks, wood for seating terraces, footbridges and pavilions refer to the most important raw materials of the region, which are of historical importance for the economic development of the city of Wernigerode.