G59 1st Swiss Horticultural Exhibition
The G59, the first Swiss horticulture exhibition was the first of so far two Swiss horticulture - Exhibitions . It took place in Zurich from April 25 to October 11, 1959 and extended over an area of around 150,000 square meters over various open spaces on the left and right banks of the lower Lake Zurich . The two halves of the exhibition were connected by shuttle boats and a cable car specially installed by Willy Habegger for the G59 .
In 1980 the Grün 80 , the 2nd Swiss exhibition for gardening and landscaping, took place near Basel in the municipality of Münchenstein .
Goal and content
Driven by the commercial and creative professional associations that were looking for a new direction in view of the economic crisis, the G59 offered a varied exhibition of themed gardens, garden types, plants and their application, special shows of plants and vegetables, equipment and special fields of gardening and gardening as well as numerous accompanying events rich entertainment program.
The goals of the G59 were to promote Swiss horticulture and to promote young talent for the horticultural industry and garden architecture.
The model was on the one hand the German garden shows, which had contributed to the promotion of the profession and the reconstruction of the war-torn cities in the period after the Second World War, and on the other hand the Swiss national exhibition of 1939, the "Landi", which had also had an identity-creating effect in a time of crisis . The parallels to the Landi 1939, especially the gondola lift across the lake, gave the G59 the popular name "Blumen-Landi" even before the opening.
Overall plan
The overall planning of the G59 was the responsibility of the gardening inspector Pierre Zbinden, head of the gardening department of the city of Zurich (today: Grün Stadt Zürich ). Under the architectural direction of Werner Stücheli and Paul R. Kollbrunner, numerous temporary facilities and a few long-term buildings were built on both banks of the lake.
Despite the overall plan, the two banks of the exhibition differed in their individual designs: on the one hand because the project planning was assigned to different planning offices, on the other hand because the local and topographical requirements of the two banks of the lake were very different.
The left bank of the lake was designed by Klaus and Walter Leder and Johannes Schweizer. They were dealing with different types of rooms and also had to take into account local conditions such as a steep slope and bridging an arterial road. With their clear shapes, the themed gardens were reminiscent of concrete art and stood out for their colorful, changing planting. One of these themed gardens was a geometrically designed flower parterre , which was replanted every season. With the "Landhaus und Garten" design, Klaus and Walter Leder tried to extend the spatial logic of the garden to the house and not to extend the house into the garden.
On the right side of the lake, the landscape architects Ernst Baumann and Willi Neukom were able to plan a level and almost contiguous area. Exhibition halls and pavilions were built on Seefeldstrasse, which leads out of town, while the areas facing the lake were intended for special gardens and entertainment purposes. The rationally laid out network of paths in the exhibition area, which was also intended for deliveries, was supplemented by more varied walking paths.
Willi Neukom explained the special architecture of the theme gardens as follows: «Themes from the Romantic era were deliberately chosen, which were given a modern setting through the use of today's building materials, concrete, glass, shaped stones. With an ascetic simplification of the form, which is limited to the essentials, they are certain to have a direct message and an immediate effect ».
With the perennial garden between Blatterwiese and Zürichhorn , they created a new piece of shore zone that should have a style-defining effect. What was new about it was the flowing transition from the bank to the lake with stepping stones between fine scree and a route that made the water directly tangible. The bank design was very well received by the public and was therefore upgraded to a lakeside path in 1963.
Associations involved in the organization
Association of Swiss Master Gardeners, Gardeners Association Zurich, Association des Horticulteurs de la Suisse Romande, Swiss Florists Association, Association of Swiss Potted Plant Nurseries, Association of Swiss Tree Nursery Owners, Association of Swiss Garden Architects
| Overall planning | Pierre Zbinden, garden inspector for the city of Zurich |
| Garden architecture planning right bank of the lake | Ernst Baumann and Willi Neukom |
| Garden architecture planning on the left bank of the lake | Walter and Klaus Leder, Johannes Schweizer |
| Architectural management | Werner Stücheli and Paul R. Kollbrunner |
The poet's garden
Probably the most controversial design of the exhibition was the minimalist "garden of the poet".
The landscape architect Ernst Cramer , who saw himself more as an artist than a gardener, created an abstract landscape with heaps of earth, water and a modern iron sculpture. The entire system was created under the aspects of abstract-geometric regularities. While the general public was irritated by the design, the professional world reacted with enthusiasm. The architect, artist and then director of the School of Applied Arts, Hans Fischli, wrote in a letter to Ernst Cramer: “They create a feeling of space that I have never felt in the open air before. They prove that with a clever mind and precise handling of craftsmanship, the precious material earth does not necessarily have to be created in the way that the forces of the natural elements do. You do not create the imitation of a natural condition, but you create a work as we abstract painters and sculptors have been trying for years with concrete means ».
Good shapes and new graphics
The breakthrough in new forms and materials in garden design is largely due to influences from art, architecture and design. The ideas of the Schweizerischer Werkbund , the emphasis on functional form and experiments with new materials such as concrete and fiber cement were reflected in both commercial and artistic fields. In 1954 the designer Willy Guhl presented his famous beach chair made of Eternit in the form of a bow.
The garden furniture, which was developed with minimal expenditure of shape and material according to ergonomic criteria, received the “Die gute Form” award from the Werkbund. The creative possibilities of the new Eternit, a material made of asbestos cardboard and cement as a binder, prompted the exhibition management to advertise a competition for garden furniture and planters together with Eternit AG . The result was stools, troughs and pots with a contemporary design.
The G59 also became an experimental field for the Neue Grafik. Brochures, posters and lettering were created according to constructive-specific design principles that enabled a logical combination of typographical and pictorial elements. The signet and graphic appearance of the G59 corresponded to the typical, modern Swiss style, which was also groundbreaking internationally.
Art at the G59
In addition to gardens and plant shows, the G59 offered an extensive accompanying program that ranged from fashion shows to art exhibitions and philatelic events.
An open-air exhibition organized by the art historian Willy Rotzler on the grounds of the G59 showed non-representational sculptures by Swiss artists such as B. Max Bill and Walter Bodmer . This art exhibition was not intended to compete with the horticultural and landscape architecture presentations, but primarily aimed at an aesthetic education of the viewer.
Aftermath
Some gardens, works of art and buildings have been preserved to this day. On the right bank of the lake, the perennial garden, the azalea valley and the nymph garden with stepping stones near the fisherman's room as well as some plastic works of art remained.
On the left-hand side, the pergola, the water features in Belvoirpark and parts of the hexagonal honeycomb garden at the Enge harbor have been integrated into the bank landscape.
In the 1980s, the once controversial and therefore demolished “Garden of the Poet” by Ernst Cramer was not only recognized as an artistic achievement, but also used as an opportunity to rehabilitate the formal design of the landscape after the natural garden movement.
The G59 also evoked modern urban planning visions. Ernst Baumann and Willi Neukom were commissioned to create a design plan for the subsequent use of the two G59 sites. They had in mind a development in the style of Le Corbusier . Although such design utopias were discussed many times, the Seefeld and Enge quarters ultimately retained their 19th century building structure.
Gondola
As the G59 took place on both banks of the lake, it was necessary to ensure that visitors were transported directly and quickly from one bank to the other. As with the Landi in 1939, a flotilla of shuttle ships was used. A gondola lift was also built, the 55-meter-high pillars of which were a very special attraction. The pillars created by the architect Werner Stücheli in collaboration with the engineer Max Walt were enthusiastically praised by Walter Jegher in the Schweizerische Bauzeitung: “But a few weeks ago the big surprise came: the supports of the suspension railway, which connects both banks across the lake. In terms of beauty and size (inner, formally expressed size, not number of meters), they surpass everything that we have seen in exhibition architecture in recent years, not excluding Brussels. "
In contrast to the one from 1939, the G59 gondola lasted seven years. In 1966 the two pylons were removed to allow an uninterrupted view of the city over the Glarus Alps again.
Further publications
- Annemarie Bucher: G59: A Manifesto for an Ambivalent Modernism. In: Landscape Journal. Design, Planning and Management of the Land. 26 (2), 2007, pp. 1-19.
- Annemarie Bucher: The G59. Between flower landscapes and abstract modern garden experiments = L'exposition G59. Entre Blumen-Landi et expériences paysagères abstraites et modern. In: anthos. 2, 2009, pp. 4-11.
- Judith Rohrer: G59 - a challenging legacy = G59 - un héritage stimulant. In: anthos. 2, 2009, pp. 12-17.
- Gabor Oplatka: The G59 gondola lift over Lake Zurich = Le téléphérique du G59 sur le lac de Zurich. In: anthos. 2, 2009, pp. 18-21.
- Stefan Rotzler: 50 years "Garden of the Poet" by Ernst Cramer = Les 50 ans du "Jardin du poète" by Ernst Cramer. In: anthos. 2, 2009, pp. 22-25.
- Des floralies aux jardins d'arts: un siècle d'expositions de paysagisme en Suisse = From the flower show to the artist's garden: Swiss horticultural exhibitions. Publié sous la direction d'Annemarie Bucher et Martine Jaquet. Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes, Lausanne 2000, ISBN 2-88074-467-9 (French-German parallel text)
- Udo Weilacher : visionary gardens. The modern landscapes by Ernst Cramer. Birkhäuser, Basel / Berlin / Boston 2001, ISBN 3-7643-6568-4 .
- Annemarie Bucher: Between “Blumen-Landi” and the Manifesto of Modernism: 50 years of G59, the first Swiss horticultural exhibition and its impact. In: Green time. 29, 2009, pp. 6-7.
Web links
- Green City Zurich website ( Memento from May 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- Swiss Werkbund website
Footnotes
- ↑ a b Willi Neukom: To the gardens on the right bank. In: garden and landscape. 8, 1959, p. 235.
- ↑ a b c d e f Annemarie Bucher (Ed.): Poster exhibition G59 for the 50th anniversary. Das kleine Forum, Zurich 2009. The accompanying publication is available from the Swiss Foundation for Landscape Architecture (SLA).
- ^ Brigitt Sigel & Erik A. de Jong: The lakeside path in Zurich. A modern strolling landscape from 1963. Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-85881-250-6 .
- ↑ Stefan Rotzler (Ed.): Garden of the Poet. G59 / 2009. Architekturforum, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-033-01985-0 .
- ^ Letter from Hans Fischli to Ernst F. Cramer dated August 26, 1959. Archive for Swiss landscape architecture, HSR University of Technology, Rapperswil.