UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Lorsch Monastery

A world heritage site is retold as a topographical transcript. The design by Topotek 1 and hg merz emerged in 2010 from a competition for scenographic and landscape architectural enhancement of the site.

The classical writings of antiquity are largely lost as originals. We know about the biblical Paradise or the historiography of Herodotus mainly through copies made in the scriptoria of medieval monasteries. One of the most important centres of this new edition of cultural memory was the Benedictine abbey in Lorsch in southern Hesse; not far from Worms. Abolished as a monastery as early as 1557 and recognised as a World Heritage Site since 1991, the site nevertheless shares the fate of the ancient documents: little of the original substance has survived. The many visitors currently find a gate hall from the 9th century and a remnant of the church building, which preserves evidence of previously uncounted building periods from the 8th to the 18th century. As one of the last surviving Carolingian buildings, the gate hall in particular is an important testimony to the post-Roman period east of the Rhine, but the spatial context of the historic monastery complex is difficult to reconstruct. What remains legible, however, is the specific topography of the site. After the original founding site, the so-called Altenmünster, was abandoned in the lowlands of the small river Weschnitz, the Carolingian abbey was built from 767 within sight on a ridge of dunes and the monastery was surrounded by a wall.

The core idea of the design for the World Heritage Site is to make the site vivid as a landscape space. The objective is to make the monastery complex coherently legible beyond the object-like relics. This design strategy also makes it possible to integrate buildings and facilities from later periods as part of the site. The complexity of the abstract, mental joining of lost spatial connections and historical sequences is made accessible with the atmospheric landscape as a spatial experience.

In a dramaturgical rearrangement, the arrival of the visitors is moved from the previous location directly next to the experience highlight Carolingian gate hall to the vicinity of the Altenmünster in the lowlands - thus topographically quasi at the beginning of the settlement history of the monastery.

As a starting point, the parking lot east of the Weschnitz is planned. From here starts the circular route, consisting of the "Path of Culture" and "Path of Nature", which makes the entire area accessible to the visitor and connects the different fragments in the two core zones of the World Heritage Site, consisting of the former monasteries of Lorsch and Altenmünster. The path leads from the car park via Altenmünster Monastery past the tobacco barn towards the monastery grounds. Via Nibelungenstraße and Benediktinerplatz (in planning) the monastery grounds of Lorsch itself are reached. Back leads the "path of nature" to the visitor information center.

The entire landscape space around the historical places is opened in such a way that the visitor receives an impression of the spatial extent of the plant with the released view of the monastery wall and the monastery area lying over it. In addition - outside the monastery wall - various museum showrooms, such as a show depot (tithe barn) with exhibits of current excavations and a "place of knowledge" as a museum center serve the detailed knowledge transfer of higher-level historical facts.

In the monastery complex itself, the readably designed topography of the dune as well as the imprints of the former buildings with a well-kept lawn surface that can be walked on everywhere form the cohesive texture of the place. The gate hall, which is also historically free-standing, receives, as a city-side access (Benedictine square) to the monastery, a surrounding paving, which transforms as a line gradation from paving to lawn inside the complex. The plaza area in front of the Gate Hall is to be transformed in the foreseeable future.

In contrast to previously common architectural representations, which were also created at excavation sites in Lorsch in the 1980s as a means of conveying supposed knowledge, the new design is based on the language of the ground. The structural extent of the monastery complex, which can now be regarded as secured, is retold with topographical gestures, the lost volume is turned into a legible imprint. The outlines of the monastery church, the enclosed forecourt and the enclosure with the cloister are depicted as imprints by raising the surrounding terrain. With a sharply drawn line of embankment about thirty-five centimetres high, the ground is virtually engraved into type. The building outlines, now present as imprints, make the extent of the monastery complex and the interrelationships of the various buildings in the space visible again. History can be walked here.

In order to open up the monastery grounds for today's requirements, new paths have been laid on top of the modelled stratifications as an additive element.

Another added element, not historically documented, is the herb garden, which lies behind the tithe barn on the hill. Terraced beds have been laid out in long bands, following the topography of the hill. Dry stone walls border the beds, are used for seating and provide habitat for plants and animals.

The planting is based on the "Lorsch Pharmacopoeia", written around 795 AD and added to the UNESCO register of document heritage in 2013. It is the oldest surviving book on monastic medicine of the early Middle Ages. The book describes recipes and suggested treatments using medicinal plants based on the "Doctrine of the Four Juices". Almost all of the plants mentioned in the book can be found in the garden. Some of them are arranged according to individual recipes, so that the ingredients for an ointment or an infusion can be directly understood. Comprehensive labelling with botanical and German names enables the scientific classification of the plants and a comprehensive overview of the medical teachings of the early Middle Ages. In addition, the garden offers a high experience and recreational value through the aesthetically pleasing plant combinations and seasonally changing flower and leaf aspects.

The new design of the overall facility is understood as an expression of an understanding of knowledge as a process. As far as not selectively opened up by complex and expensive excavations, the archaeological heritage remains undisturbed in the ground. In view of the fact that knowledge is never completely secure, the forms of the imprints can be adapted to the changing state of archaeological knowledge without great effort. The topographical transcription of the monastery complex thus becomes a retelling of the world cultural heritage of Lorsch Abbey.

First prizeGerman Landscape Architecture Award 2015

Jury verdict: The new landscape park at the World Heritage Site of Lorsch Monastery is an outstanding example of how historical relics and traces can be preserved in terms of conservation on the one hand, and on the other hand, how they can be returned more strongly to their landscape relationships. The basic ideas of the project of protecting the monuments and improving accessibility were followed here by a clever reorganization of the traffic and path connections in favor of their return to the genesis of the place, from the landscape to the city or, more precisely, from the Altenmünster monastery to the famous Carolingian gate hall, whose appearance now freed from all parking traffic and with a few creative ground interventions regains a clear presence.

Along two paths, the "Path of Nature" and the "Path of Culture", locals and visitors alike can now better understand not only the structural dimensions of the former monastery complex, but also its emergence from the landscape. The volumes of the lost buildings have been transformed into legible imprints in the landscape with sharply drawn slope lines, which at the same time protect the archaeological remains from further decay. Landscape was condensed into highly sensual and aesthetic spaces, making the history of the site legible again. Buildings, topography and vegetation combine creatively and sensitively to form a very multifaceted "place of knowledge", which now also invites visitors to make very pleasantly individual discoveries of the historically changing boundaries of nature and culture.