The garden a place of longing

Katharina Sommer encounters an experimental
exhibition project by swiss architects EDELAAR MOSAYEBI INDERBITZIN
at Architekturgalerie, Berlin.

We are standing in a garden, yet we’re in a building at the same time. It smells of earth and leaves, dampness hangs in the air, gravel crunches underfoot and leaves are falling to the ground. We are both inside and outside. But what’s this garden doing inside a building? For six weeks, we transformed the Architektur Galerie into a garden that would change over the course of the exhibition—growing, blossoming and withering. This installation turns the focus not on architecture, but on a specific interest: gardens are a recurring theme in our work, whether as a creative resonance space, a way of conveying a motif or as a place of longing.

For once, at Architektur Galerie Berlin, we did not display any architectural images; instead, we designed our own new project, which turned the space itself into the subject of the exhibition. We created a direct spatial experience for visitors that simultaneously communicated our approach and philosophy. The challenge of emulating a mature garden to produce a deceptively real appearance was particularly appealing. It was a kind of game between illusion and reality. This sense of alienation helped to frame the fundamental concept behind the garden, allowing its own intrinsic value to come to the fore.