Kamel Louafi, Berlin

Kamel Louafi, Berlin

In the exhibition “Le voyage oriental à Berlin,” the Algerian-born landscape architect and Berlin resident Kamel Louafi documents the design, construction, and completion of the Oriental Garden in the “Gardens of the World” in the Berlin-Marzahn Erholungspark (recreational park).

Following the Chinese, Japanese, and Balinese gardens, the intercultural dialogue now continues with the Oriental Garden, which makes accessible the garden arts of the Islamic world. Kamel Louafi’s design features garden types from various lands associated with Islam. In this context, Islam is far more than a religion: it shapes both cultural experience and ways of life. With the descriptions of paradise (in Persian: para-deiza) contained in the Koranic suras, the garden becomes a vital aspect of Islamic life, its design elements found, despite regional diversity, in most gardens. It was possible, consequently, to develop the Oriental Garden from essential and ever recurring basic patterns while simultaneously adapting it to the specific conditions of the Berlin-Marzahn site. The enclosure of the courtyard, for example, alludes to the Oriental building tradition of surrounding gardens with walls. This shields the oasis, hidden spring, or symbolic paradise from direct visibility. Traditionally, the garden courtyard itself is laid out geometrically in multipartite fashion, and features fountains, with a fountain basin set at the center of a pavilion. To the north and south are arcades whose interior and exterior façades are provided with relieves. The ceilings are furnished with painted wood. Along the walls of the arcades and of the garden are tile mosaics (zillij). Within the so-called ‘bab’ (vestibule within an arcade), the cupola is composed of droplet-shaped ‘muquarnas.’ The composition is completed by calligraphic relieves of poems about gardens and flowers.