Planten un Blomen, Dag Hammarskjöld Square

As part of the revitalization of the Congress Center Hamburg (CCH), the adjacent "Planten un Blomen" park was extended and redesigned along with its surroundings. The redesigns and extensions are spread across numerous heterogeneous park edge areas around the botanical garden. POLA won the competition held in 2015 with its design, which was implemented in the years up to 2022.

Among other things, the four-lane Marseiller Straße, where part of the planted ramparts once stood, was dismantled and filled in between the "Planten un Blomen" and "Alter Botanischer Garten" areas, and the newly created green space was reintegrated into the park. The two areas are listed garden works of art, which the POLA design treated with sensitive restraint. Now, where the dark concrete trough of the four-lane Marseiller Strasse used to be and cut the park in two, there is a sequence of bright, inviting plantings and squares, including a park balcony with a view over the redesigned Dag Hammarskjöld Square.

During the redesign of the adjacent Dag-Hammarskjöld-Platz, the station forecourt of the former Dammtor Imperial Station and an important component of the redesign and expansion of Hamburg's most important inner-city park, the retaining wall opposite the station, which was up to six meters high, was removed to create a clear view of the Old Botanical Garden. Due to the elaborate changes to the square and park topography in terms of barrier-free pedestrian access to the park, the disruptive, non-barrier-free pedestrian bridge that once bridged the difference in height between the station entrance and the ramparts was removed. Where once the gray concrete sheet pile wall formed a physically and visually insurmountable obstacle between the station and the park, visitors to Hamburg can now reach the park directly and barrier-free via the station forecourt. The path leads from the station portal along an intensively planted display window, with staged views of the park, directly to the Botanical Garden.

Dag Hammarskjöld Square has thus been transformed from an unattractive rear side of the station into the new "antechamber" of Planten un Blomen. The various park extensions blend naturally and unpretentiously into the historic and listed park and counter the design diversity of the two listed park sections "... with a clever and restrained modesty. With a few simple gestures, the park sections are skillfully connected with the forecourts of the train station and the adjacent Congress Center." (Excerpt from the jury of the 2015 competition, 1st prize)