A garden with no ground
The planting climbs a seventeen-metre steel frame rather than lying on grass.
Roland zh — CC BY-SA 3.0 · JoachimKohler-HB — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Pemko — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Roland zh — CC BY-SA 3.0
An unusual park in the Oerlikon district north of Zurich: rather than a space of grass, it is a huge open-topped steel structure whose plants climb its walls. The idea came from the site: the Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon electrical engineering works stood here — and the park takes its name from them. When the works closed in the 1990s and the district was replanned, the park was built as a hall with the dimensions of the industrial building that had stood there: a hundred metres long and seventeen high, but with no roof and no solid walls. What was built is a steel cage planted with more than a hundred species of climbers, rising on wires and gradually covering the structure until the walls turned green. You can climb the metal walkways to the upper levels and sit above ground among the planting, looking out at the district from inside. This is among the best-known works of contemporary landscape architecture in Europe, and it is free and always open. It lies north of the centre in a wholly rebuilt district, and is worth the trip for anyone interested in architecture or design.
The planting climbs a seventeen-metre steel frame rather than lying on grass.
The frame was built to the measurements of the industrial building that stood here.
You climb and sit among the planting above ground level.
Oerlikon, north Zurich
For anyone interested in architecture or spatial design, clearly yes — it is an internationally known work with nothing like it elsewhere. The trip is only ten minutes by train. For someone wanting an ordinary park to sit in, no — this is an architectural experience more than a green space.
The whole district is an example of industrial land reuse: modern buildings, public squares and parks laid out on the sites of closed factories. It is entirely unlike historic central Zurich and shows how Swiss cities expand today.
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