The book Natur Park Schöneberger Südgelände and Berlin’s Urban Nature is part of the 2022 International Carlo Scarpa Prize for Gardens. A dossier of information and background materials about the award-winning site – and related themes and issues, the publication is integral part of the awareness-raising campaign which is a fundamental element of the Prize.

Located just south of the S-Bahn ring, Natur Park Südgelände is the result of the abandonment of a vast railyard and its radical reclaiming by nature: a unique condition recognised for its ecological and social value and informed by the concurrent interaction of residents’ voices, landscape culture, art and ecology. Open to the public since 1999, Natur Park Südgelände has been an experimental case study and catalyst, inseparably linked to Berlin’s history and to the existence of a ‘school of urban ecology,’ which has stimulated and guided both the design perspective and the widespread awareness of the landscape that have given rise to an idea of ‘urban nature’ in this city.

Content

• Statement of the scientific Committee of the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche on the Carlo Scarpa Prize, in English, German and Italian

• Thilo Folkerts, The Emergence of an Urban Nature

• Ingo Kowarik, Südgelände Berlin: Transforming a Wild Urban Wasteland to a New Kind of Nature Park

• Rita Suhrhoff in conversation with Thilo Folkerts, Natur Park Südgelände: Project, Maintenance, Development

• Klaus Duschat in conversation with Thilo Folkerts, Natur Park Südgelände: The Role of the Art

• Chronology of the Natur Park Schöneberger Südgelände 1838-2025: From Shunting Yard to Nature Park

• Christoph Schmidt, A New City Experience: The Key Role of Natur Park Südgelände for the Urban Paradigm Shift in Berlin

• Lorenza Manfredi, Jannis Schiefer, Laura Veronese, Through Berlin: Urban Natures

• Stefanie Hennecke, Berlin, a Brief History of its Parks

• Almut Jirku, Like Pearls on a String: The Berlin Open Spaces System and the Park am Gleisdreieck

• Ingo Kowarik, The Berlin School of Urban Ecology and the Emergence of Wasteland Ecology

• Sandra Jasper, Berlin, a Ruderal Urbanism

• Grün Berlin: sustainable routes for developing public space

• Gabriele G. Kiefer in conversation with Thilo Folkerts, Berlin and the Development of Contemporary Landscape Culture

• Norbert Kühn, Urban Spontaneous Vegetation as a Tool for Climate Adaptation

• Heinz W. Hallmann and Ursula Wilms, The Design of the Topographie des Terrors Site

• Leonard Grosch, Berlin’s Park am Gleisdreieck or the Art of Designing Lively Places

• Anna Lambertini, Hybrid, Cosmopolitan, Inventive. Nature of Urban Wildness

• Juan Manuel Palerm, The Wild Nature of the Wastelands. On Berlin, ‘Urban Nature,’ Architecture, Art and the Void as Project Material. The Case of Natur Park Schöneberger Südgelände

• Carlo Scarpa Prize 1990-2022 / The activities of the Carlo Scarpa Prize for the Place