Park am Gleisdreieck

A park for 21st Century

Gleisdreieck in the heart of Kreuzberg is a 40 hectares derelict railway site of the Anhalter and Potsdammer railway yards wedged between former East and West Berlin. In 2006 GROSS. MAX. won third prize in an international competition to transform the site into a new inner-city park. Having been abandoned, the site became an urban jungle of pioneer species’, ruderal vegetation, and slowly decaying rails. The new park is divided into an experimental garden, a pioneer woodland and an urban meadow. The design aims to overcome the prior separating character of the rail-tracks, to forge new connections and routes. A dynamic experience is provided by a series of partly elevated walkways inspired by the configuration of former railway lines. The ambition is to create a Peoples Park for the 21st century; the space provided should allow a process of colonization by both plants and people. This should not be too prescribed; on the contrary it should allow for the unexpected. A Peoples Park of the 21st century is a peculiar kind of collective individualism.