Eden Project

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Buckminster Fuller domes of the Eden Project in Cornwall

The Eden Project is a botanical garden at Bodelva in Cornwall , England , about five miles northeast of St Austell . The facility is around 50 hectares and is a major attraction in the south of England: in 2011 it was visited by over a million people.

Investments

Botanical Garden

Plants inside

The Eden Project was based on an idea by the English archaeologist and garden enthusiast Tim Smit in a disused kaolin pit near St Austell . From the idea in 1995, it took six years to the opening of the facility on March 17, 2001. The garden is characterized by the two huge greenhouses, each consisting of four interconnected geodesic domes designed by Richard Buckminster Fuller . Different vegetation zones are simulated here. The Eden Project's greenhouses are currently the largest in the world.

In the larger of the two greenhouses of the complex, a tropical-humid climate zone and in the smaller one a subtropical-dry and Mediterranean climate zone are simulated. The aim is to imitate a natural environment in order to be able to accommodate plants and also some animal species from all over the world. The kaolin pit itself was also landscaped, planted and decorated with sculptures. However, the garden is still under construction and extensions within the area are planned.

Plants inside
Hexagonal structure of the domes
Recycling figure

According to the operator, the outdoor area and the greenhouses house 100,000 plants of around 5,000 species. Above all, we are talking about useful plants of all kinds. Particular emphasis is placed on the presentation and breeding of rare and old varieties threatened with extinction in order to preserve the species and thus genetic diversity of useful plants.

The project has a preservative and educational approach. In addition to the names of the plants, visitors are also introduced to their medicinal use and their importance for our environment , in order to prevent humanity from the destruction of the environment through education. Regular art exhibitions and information events related to nature and the environment are therefore also part of the park's program.

Technology of greenhouses

The drafts for the geodesic domes come from the British architectural office Nicholas Grimshaw , the structural planning from Anthony Hunt , and they were executed by the Würzburg company Mero . The domes, which are intersected several times, are covered with double-walled cushions made of ETFE , a particularly light, transparent plastic . The foil cushions were fitted into a construction made of standardized, hexagonal and pentagonal tubular steel frame elements ( space framework ). The space frame constructions cover a total area of ​​23,000 m² (surface approx. 30,000 m²) and are up to 50 m high with a diameter of up to 125 m.

Trivia

The geodesic domes served as the backdrop for the movie James Bond 007 - Die Another Day .

Since 2002, the Eden Project has held an annual music festival called The Eden Sessions .

See also

literature

sorted alphabetically by author

  • Dominic Cole: Parks in the Place of Former Industrial Sites - The Eden Project . In: Die Gartenkunst  12 (2/2000), pp. 222–226.
  • Eden Team (ed.): Eden Project. The Guide 2005/6 . St Austell 2005.
  • Jonathan Lee: 50 great adventures. Special places and the people who created them . Prestel Verlag , Munich 2006. ISBN 3-7913-3530-8
  • Richard Mabey: Fencing Paradise. Exploring the Gardens of Eden . London 2005.
  • Hugh Pearman, Andrew Whalley: The Architecture of Eden. With a foreword by Sir Nicholas Grimshaw . London 2003.
  • Tim Smit: Eden. Bantam Press, London 2001.
  • Paul Spooner: The Revenge of the Green Planet. The Eden Project Book of Amazing Facts About Plants . St Austell 2003.
  • Philip McMillan Browse, Louise Frost, Alistair Griffiths: Plants of Eden (Eden Project) . Alison Hodge, London 2001.

media

  • Robin Kewell (ed.): Eden. The inside story. St Austell undated: The Eden Project. (Video DVD, English)
  • Alan Titchmarsh: The Eden Project. o. O. 2006. (Video-DVD, English)

Web links

Commons : Eden Project  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Association of Leading Visitor Attractions: Visitor statistics for 2011 , accessed January 13, 2012
  2. ↑ Previous line-ups | Eden Sessions concerts, Eden Project, Cornwall. Retrieved May 24, 2019 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 21 ′ 43 "  N , 4 ° 44 ′ 41"  W.