Garden ensemble, Jewish Museum

The gardens surrounding the Jewish Museum incorporate the historically charged concept of architect Daniel Libeskind and thematize individual sections. Aspects of Berlin's Jewish history are materialized and readable in the surface texture of the site or as lines on the grounds.
The courtyard dedicated to the poet Paul Celan interprets the "Berlin backyard". Here, in a free interpretation of a graphic by Celan's wife, a floor relief made of natural stone divides the area of the courtyard. The Garden of Exile (ETA Hoffmann Garden) is a sloping garden courtyard whose 49 steles planted with olive willows unfold a multifaceted symbolism within the framework of the overall concept. A small playground takes up references to the building and the surrounding urban space. It is dedicated to the poet Walter Benjamin. A quotation from the Garden of Paradise, within a grove of robinias created on the rubble of war, is symbolic of the thesis of a conceivable reversal of historical ideas to the Garden of Paradise in the present and is an image of the unbroken power of nature.

The integration of the spatial and temporal network of meanings developed by architect D. Libeskind, which relates the museum building to the history of Berlin's Jews, is followed by the themes of various areas of the garden surrounding the museum.
Inspired by the materials of old Berlin, the materials of the garden and the plaza areas were chosen. A courtyard named after the poet Paul Celan, located between the old and new buildings, is reminiscent of typical "Berlin backyards". Here, in the interpretation of a graphic by Celan's wife, Gisèle Celan Lestrange, a floor relief made of natural stone divides the area of the courtyard. The ground relief spreads out, as it were, under the building in all directions and recurs in the surrounding area at various places in the garden.
The Garden of Exile (E.T.A.Hoffmann Garden) "stands for the attempt to completely disorient the visitor, for a shipwreck of history." (Daniel Libeskind, 1999) The visitor enters the Garden of Exile after leaving the axes. 49 concrete steles rise on a square ground plan. The entire layout of the garden is tilted at twelve degrees, confusing the visitor's sensory perception. This spatial experience is meant to refer to the lack of orientation and sense of disorientation felt by emigrants who were expelled from Germany. Olive willows grow from the stelae, symbolizing hope.
A small playground is dedicated to the poet Walter Benjamin and takes up references to the building as well as the neighboring open spaces.
The rose grove, with white and red roses planted in a twisting pattern around each other, is a reminder of the rose, as one of the few plants permitted for cultivation within the walls of historic Jerusalem.
Footprints of the unbuilt, emptied void (voided void) from the building's framework of meaning are formed on the surface by gravel fields. As a quotation of a contemporary conception of paradise committed to nature, the robinia grove created on the rubble of war is interpreted through artistic intervention. This garden quotation refers to the constantly changing ideas.