‘Transporting Landscapes’, was an invited competition undertaken in collaboration with Artist Rosemarie Trockel.
Origin
The Sites originates, due to the necessity to link across the Bahn/train line, which creates a physical boundary due to the need to connect points, North and South, far away . The Bahndeckel as a structure creates this connection and simultaneously a ‘new ground’. It is on this ‘new surface’ that an initial marking occurred reiterating of the bahn line below. This new ‘Bahn’, is thought of as container, like a Spielzeug Kister /Play box, that holds the activities and landscape elements of places far away, transporting ‘one’ through the imagination in time and place.
Public Space
Public Space created, through setting up a ‘Game Structure’ – a series of markings/rules laid upon the ground to demarcate areas within which multiple interpretations and uses can occur/exist. This structure allows for a high degree
of flexibility i.e. the same area can be used for various activities. 1. Relaxation: Seating, Picnics, Lounging, Reading, Sunbathing… 2. Play a) Structured Play /Recreation: Ball
Spiel, Basketball, Volleyball, Badminton… and b) Unstructured Play: Hopscotch, Sand
Castle building, Imaginary Games – a place for all. The ‘Game Structure’ suggests rather than dictates place and is created in a minimal way
through a subtle division of materiality. This division occurs through material changes to the surface and by the placement of objects (bench, tree, height of sand…) on the surface.
“In place space is interwoven with the consciousness of human-beings, one is presented with a space unconsciously interwoven” zentralparc 1938-1939 W. Benjamin
“An uncanny materiality inherent in the surface engulfs the surface” R Smithson
Connections & Site
The Site is situated in a new and vibrant housing development in the proximity of Theresienwiese, Bravariapark near to Munchen’s center. The Bahndeckel will be an important link in a network of green spaces for this area (Theresienwiese, Bravariapark, Georg-Freundorfer Platz, Herzog_Ernst Platz und Westpark). The Bahndeckle is accessible and transgressible from both sides and acts as a connector between the two sides of dwellings and to the Bavaria Park.The existing ‘bahndeckel’ or roof structure over a main North-South train line in Munchen, Germany was transformed through transporting ‘distant landscapes’ – using a ‘mirage’ or ‘cloud’ screen wall, a sand dune, or the vor-Alps – onto the ‘bahndeckel’ surface. This framework delineated a series of ‘atmospheres’ signified through the use of various materials, vegetation and activities and whose placement was set in relationship to the existing context and the larger landscape and urban networks. Completed with TOPOTEK1 in July 2010.
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