The 21^st Century Garden is the entrance and reception area of the 2009 German Federal Horticultural Exhibition in Schwerin.  As such, it has a wide variety of functions: to inform visitors, to provide every service that they could possibly need, to get them in the right mood for the exhibition and to give them an initial overall impression of the underlying concept of the Schwerin Garden Festival.

The first thing that visitors arriving on foot, by bus, coach or tram will see is an large area planted with a fresh green species of Robinia in regular lines.  A walkway runs along the edge of the small section of the lake behind the castle known as the “Burgsee”.  Every imaginable service facility, from the ticket office to cash points, information stands, toilets, a garden shop and a farmers’ market are located here, but there are also places where you can just rest or where groups can gather.

Passing through a covered colonnade, which picks up on the garden design theme of vertical greenery with pillars overgrown with moss, visitors will arrive at the first garden: the Floating Meadow.  The austere rectangular area gives the impression that it is floating on water.  Flowerbeds with seasonal planting and shrubs are laid out in an undulating lawn; consequently visitors can see them at close quarters, so that immediately a connection is made between people and the world of plants.

The location of the Floating Meadow right by the lake means that this is the ideal place to plant water lilies.  Right at the start of the exhibition tour, the design and position of the 21^st Century Garden signals the intention of the German Federal Horticultural Exhibition in Schwerin.  With views towards the castle and the Old Town, a link is forged between garden design and urban architecture; the move away from definite lines and forms and the playful, undulating surface of the Floating Meadow create a relationship between the natural preserve and the clearly structured garden; and the location of the 21^st Century Garden immediately alongside the Burgsee makes clear the link between the water and city.  These are all design elements that visitors to the gardens of the 2009 German Federal Horticultural Exhibition in Schwerin will come across again and again in one form or another.

The Seven Gardens

Map of Gardens