Pyramidengarten

On a public land between Columbiadamm, a cemetery and the Sehitlik Mosque, an intercultural garden has been founded in 2007 by a group of citizen from Multikulturelle NachbarschaftsGarten Neukölln e.V.

Pyramidengarten is accessible from a small gate on the noisy Columbiadamm. Once inside, the garden looks like a hidden and quiet place, where natural and humans elements from different types of Berlin urban landscape are preset and coexist. A fox lives in a container at the entrance and runs free among cabbages, herbs and wild vegetation and a row of old conifers delimits the area from the cemetery.

The central part of the garden is cultivated with crops, rented by families and neighbours for a little amount of money. There is no division between the crops, so the central part of the garden is a common area designed by plants and urban agriculture techniques. In order to make the cultivation of crops possible, a new and fertile layer of soil has been replaced by the old one. At the back of the Vereinhouse, on a strip of greenery along the wall, plants from all over the world and fruit trees are grown, and in the front a small part of the garden is commonly cultivated. In the eastern part of the area, a wooden fence separates the garden from a sculpture studio, run by one of the garden's founders.

The Pyramidengarten team keeps the garden always open to different types of collaborations oriented towards intercultural and transgenerational exchange. Forty people are part of the community and together they represent a high variegate social milieu. The garden is a place of encounter and inclusion between Germans, Turks, Syrians, Afghans, Portuguese, British, South Americans.

The integration in this space can be read at different levels and among different features. Integration between humans and nature, between urban spacial and landscape sets, between people and between different urban agriculture techniques, experiences and knowledges.

Webistes:

• Pyramidengarten