Marktplatz and Lammegarten, Bad Salzdetfurth.
POLA clients think out of the box and stay open to the process: “I often find long-term clients, with whom I enjoy working together on a frequent basis,” Jörg Michel reveals, “– people who like to imagine possibilities beyond the initially visible, with courage and faith in exploring the unknown.” 86
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Issue 11 4
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February 2024
THE BEAUTY OF IMPERFECTION As Alberto Giacometti once formulated: “The attempt is everything. How marvellous!” – For each project, POLA landscape architects begin with the same basic questions of what exactly defines beauty: “Is there a distinction between the ugly and the beautiful or are both these poles part of the same and is one unthinkable without the other? And last but not least: How much perfection is appropriate?” Jörg Michel defines perfection as inhuman in most cases: “Whatever connects people with their environment – and is considered beautiful – is also in part fallible and includes mistakes
GENTLE PATH TO SUCCESS POLA is based on ten years of upfront experience both at home and abroad, a phase which Jörg Michel deems of immense value. The learning process included several office partnerships, teaching, research and projects all over the globe from Berlin and Munich to Canada and Kazakhstan, through to China. The further away, the more the awareness grew to literally find a way back to the roots. In the middle of the banking crisis of 2008/09, the new beginning grew on a solid inner foundation. With it, a new name was found as well: POLA is short for ‘poetic landscapes’.
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Berlin-based, prize-winning landscape architect Jörg Michel explains the sometimes hidden treasures of the ‘genius loci’, written into every tree and stone, street and landscape: “These stories and their inherent beauty nourish, touch and connect us, they make us happy.”
and the uncontrollable.” Life itself, especially that of plants, is always imperfect and fallible, thus unfolding specific charms that we value and admire as beautiful.
TEXT: CORNELIA BRELOWSKI
“Where there is beauty there is usually also peace to be found.” – In addition to creating a new space which allows us to find harmony within ourselves and nature, POLA landscape architects strive to unearth and reveal the existent history of a place.
PHOTOS: HANNS-JOOSTEN, © POLA
POETIC LANDSCAPES