Previous state

The Eilenberg Station, which is located in Leipzig's graphic arts district – the heartland of the German publishing world – was used between 1874 and 1942 for local and long-distance railway transport. After its destruction during the World War II, the abandoned site was surrounded by a fence that concealed a locomotive shed, former housing for railway employees and some sections of the surrounding wall. An esplanade, no longer in use and dotted by these obsolete structures coexisted with an interurban heating pipe that crossed the whole area. The residential neighbourhoods around the old
Station, with a great number of empty dwellings, were severely lacking in open spaces.

Description

The project for the new Reudnitz park determined that the pre-existing elements – trees, heating pipe, train shed, surrounding walls and the different buildings – would be integrated into the space as characteristic and fully accepted features of the site within a general conception of the project, which also included the intense, critical and creative participation of the citizens throughout the process. The proposal as to the form of the park was based on the interplay between two elements: an organising structure, arising from the overlapping of different levels (paths, streets, squares, the remaining buildings that were to be reconverted and the nature of the vegetation), and strips of garden plots to be made available for use by the citizens.

The organising elements of the space were arranged around an axial thoroughfare, the green corridor joining the park with the city, and basically given form by a low gabion wall, topped by birches, that was constructed, in a period of two weeks, by young people from all over Europe who were coordinated by the project's planning office and construction company. A number of transversal routes run perpendicularly and obliquely to this, giving continuity to an itinerary that could be taken on an urban scale since it has constructed a general transit scheme of exit routes from the central spine that guarantees the park’s connection with the surrounding districts of the city. These transversal paths, marked to the north by poplars and to the south by metal panels, lead into the space crossed by the big heating pipe. This space is divided into three longitudinal strips: a large grass surface conserving the spatial characteristics of the former rail space of the station and two areas of plots of land at either end of the central green area; the southern part with alternating spaces covered with robinia shrubs, bramble hedges, and with zones for sports, games and leisure activities; and the northern part, where the garden plots are organised in such a way that they can be used privately by groups and local residents once they have been rented.

In the definition and execution phases of the project, there were different degrees of citizen participation: in the characteristics of the garden plots that would be rented to the local residents, in the construction of public spaces and planning of games, sports and leisure spaces. In meetings with the residents, proposals were produced concerning the form and use of the garden-plot spaces. In the interests of their best care and use, it was decided that each person renting a plot could also acquire a container of specific format, but of the colour of choice, for gardening and other tools. In separating the semi-private plots from the public grassed areas, the low gabion walls neatly and clearly defined the space while maintaining visual independence between the public areas of the park and the microcosms represented by the garden strips rented by the residents.

In the planning of games and leisure spaces, the Leipzig City Council’s green zones service, an association of citizens and the planning office, collected the ideas of children from the district in different workshops, and created for them a hill for games, a magic forest and facilities for a movement game, with their collaboration. Among other installations of the park, a multifunction sports field, spaces for table tennis, pétanque spaces and an area of sand for beach volleyball were fitted out.