2_0_DiscoverGermany_July 2015_Issue28:Scan Magazine 1
26/6/15
11:44
Page 86
Discover Germany | Business | Fine Landscape Architects
Rainer Schmidt Landschaftsarchitekten
Finding recreational spaces in modern city landscapes Rainer Schmidt’s long professional and academic career and his handling of complex design challenges have gained him a wide expertise: from grand scale city master plans to innovative parks and garden designs. According to him, landscape architecture in the 21st century should be a multidisciplinary reflection the relationship between humans and nature. TEXT: JESSICA HOLZHAUSEN | PHOTOS: RAINER SCHMIDT LANDSCHAFTSARCHITEKTEN
Landscape architecture has to counterbalance today’s problems like demographic change, digital revolution or energy transition preventatively. 50 per cent of the world population is living in cities today, in 2050 this will rise to about 70 per cent. A development demanding balancing measures and new approaches to urban landscapes is needed. “Urban open spaces are a city’s beating heart and lung”, Rainer Schmidt says. “We understand the idea of a city as public garden to be well suited as leitmotif for contemporary societies, a place for discovering and communicating new insights.” Rainer Schmidt founded his international offices for landscape architecture and urban development in 1991. In the last 24 years he and his team of now 30 landscape archi-
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tects and city planners have successfully developed an international reputation in both fields. Rainer Schmidt Landschaftsarchitekten have their main office in Munich but also branches in Berlin and Bernburg. Since 1991 Rainer Schmidt has been a professor for landscape design in Berlin. Before opening his office, Schmidt had studied landscape design in Weihenstephan and later worked for Hansjakob landscape architects in Munich. Honoured with multiple awards, he won the European Garden Award 2014 for Park Killesberg in Stuttgart. The Killesberg’s two topographic characteristics were the starting point for a new design: a soft, nearly natural landscape and man-made quarries. The underlying design theme is based on a twisted perception of
Main image: Doha Aerospace City Top: Airport Munich, Terminal II Above: Culture Wave City, Hangzhou
human scale and a reinterpretation of familiar perspectives. This was achieved in creating a new topography of cushion like lawns between lowered paths. How modern landscape design could look like, Rainer Schmidt has proven in projects like the Terminal II of Munich’s airport, the Campeon Infineon Headquarter in Unterhaching or the Parkstadt Schwabing in Munich, where he created public open spaces and a central park between office buildings and living quarters. Rainer Schmidt Landschaftsarchitekten have conceptualised and implemented the master plan. Since 2002 the office works in Europe, the Middle East, China, Korea, Russia, Turkey and Kazakhstan. Among the main projects are the Culture Way City in Hangzhou, a shopping mall and cultural centre, the Dalian Fine Arts Campus and the Leatop Plaza in Guangzhou. Currently the office is involved in constructing the world’s third biggest mosque in Algiers. www.rainerschmidt.com