Gold Landscape Planning and Garden Design · 2017
Historical Park Park and Memorial
by Udo Hubert Dagenbach Glada-Berlin
- A' Design Award 2017 Gold Winner in Landscape Planning and Garden Design
- Awarded April 15, 2017
- CLIENT: Glasser and Dagenbach
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 52,077
- Verification code C8B908321B · Verify this award
About Historical Park Park and Memorial
Historical Park is a public park and memorial in Berlin, set on the site of a Prussian prison built between 1842 and 1849. Political prisoners were held and tortured there at the end of the Second World War, and the buildings were demolished in 1958, leaving only the outer wall. The star shaped prison plan is recalled through raised and sunken lawns and hedges. A concrete cube marks the former central observation point. Sandblasted beige concrete matches the joints of the restored brick wall. The design joins recreation and remembrance in one landscape.
Udo Hubert Dagenbach's Historical Park Park and Memorial emerges from the rich tradition of commemorative landscape design that gained particular prominence in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, where architects and landscape designers increasingly employed minimalist formal vocabularies to create spaces of reflection, memory, and contemplation. This distinguished work demonstrates the designer's sophisticated understanding of how geometric intervention within natural settings can generate profound experiential and emotional resonance without recourse to figurative representation or conventional monumental statuary. The composition achieves remarkable visual intelligence through its careful calibration of scale relationships, wherein the human-scaled cubic frame sculpture establishes an intimate focal point while the broader earthwork depressions create a more expansive topographic gesture that rewards both intimate encounter and distant aerial appreciation. The white cubic structure, rendered in what appears to be stone or concrete, presents an open framework that paradoxically defines space through absence, its skeletal form framing views of sky, trees, and surrounding landscape while simultaneously marking a specific location of significance. The rectilinear lawn depressions demonstrate sensitivity to the land art traditions established by artists working with earthen materials and geometric form, their subtle grade changes creating shadow-catching surfaces that transform with the movement of sunlight throughout the day and across seasons. The chromatic dialogue between the pristine white of the sculptural element and the warm autumnal palette of the surrounding vegetation creates a temporal meditation, with the unchanging geometry of the memorial contrasting poetically with the cyclical transformation of the natural world. The inscribed wall element suggests textual commemoration, inviting visitors to engage with written memorial content while the landscape provides a contemplative setting for such engagement. What elevates this work within the canon of memorial design is its refusal of sentimentality in favor of formal clarity, allowing visitors to bring their own meanings and memories to a space designed for reflection rather than prescription.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The Prussian prison was constructed from 1842 to 1849 in Berlin. At the end of World War 2 political prisoners have been captured and tortured there. In 1958 the buildings, except the outer wall, have been destroyed. After the political reunion of the two parts Berlin, the city contracted the Glasser and Dagenbach with the planning. The star shaped buildings are conveyed through a series of elevated and sunken grass sections and hedges. The prisons once central observation area is symbolized by a concrete cube as center of an architectural garden with elements of Land and Minimal Art.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- The whole park area has a size of roughly 2,8 ha. About 330 m of the old prison wall was restored. It is about 4 to 5 m high.
To block the view against existing buildings from the 1970ies we planted many oevergreen pine trees.
In a prison cell a sound installation is started when you enter the cell. Poem from prisoners and knocking sound codes can be heard about 5 minutes. A poem from a former prisoner during the Nazi Period is written on the inside of the prison wall. - Tags
- historical park, Berlin, Geschichtspark Moabit, Moabit Prison, memorial
- Production Technology
- The parks architectural elements are made out of sandblasted, beige coloured concrete. The concrete has the same colour like the the joints of the old remaining brick wall which is left from the former prison. The existing trees are left as visible layers of time which covered this place throughout the postwar time until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Red leafed book trees as hedges show the former prison cell structure. Column like growing Junipers replace the former yard birds walking in the triangular shaped outdoor yards.
- Design Challenge
- Only prison walls where left . The prison as building and its historical context was not visible any more. The story of the prison is transcripted in a public park through land and minimal art, without a didactic approach. You can receive just as much information as you like. The design completely relies on the impression of the architectural and vegetative elements. We avoided any mannerist attitude; it took a lot of energy to reject political influence from outside and to keep the neighbors and interested citizens informed.
- Project Duration
- The project started 1990 and was finished after 17 years in 2007 in Berlin.
The planning process started with a research contract and then extended to a planning contract. The construction took 3 years. - Operation Flow
- The prison park is locked daily at night for security purposes. So the prison function stays somehow alive. The park needs some protection at night as the central station is close by.
It has 3 entrances, on each entrance information pannels are installed, explaining the historical and architectural story of the park. - Research
- A long process of both public and internal discussion in the team developed the design direction. The client wanted to reach a combination of both recreational park and memorial. This has not been realized before. It took a long time of thinking what means will be used to tell the history of the prison and yet provide a recreational landscape.
- Inspiration
- This project shows a way how to combine the design for a recreational park with a memorial. With means of land art, and minimal art the story of the historically meaningful space is told by forming an architectural garden that allows both recreation and memory.
- Image Credits
- image 1: Udo Dagenbach, topview,2007
image 2: Udo Dagenbach, panopticum,2007
image 3: Udo Dagenbach, entrance, 2007
image 4: Udo Dagenbach, entrance 2, 2007
image 5: Udo Dagenbach, layout plan, 2007 - Patents
- all copyrights belong to Udo Dagenbach, glasser and dagenbach, 2006
Colors of Historical Park Park and Memorial
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