“Garden of the 21st Century” in Warsaw by Mecanoo

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Architects presented a garden with an underground pavilion and a wide spiral staircase. The location was chosen in the historic part of Warsaw – Lazienki Park. The modern concept of the garden will shade monuments located around the park, the survived buildings of the Polish architecture of the eighteenth-nineteenth centuries.

Garden of the 21 Century in Lazienki Park

“Garden of the 21st Century” by Mecanoo

The project was called “The Garden of the twenty-first century” and looks like a park of greenery in the form of a triangle, under which there is an exhibition hall. Entrances to the two central hall fairgrounds are connected to a common lobby with a spiral staircase. Besides the two main halls there are also a number of small exhibition areas with mobile walls that transform the space for the necessary dimension.

Lazienki’s palace and park ensemble is one of the key attractions of Warsaw, the monument of classicism of the XVIII – XIX centuries. However, a part of its territory needs some updating, and its new architectural plan was the subject of the international competition organized by the Polish Ministry of Culture and Environment.

A park of greenery in the form of a triangle

80 teams participated in the competition, 16 of them are not from Poland. Among them were the winners: Dutch Mecanoo, Delva Landscape Architects and a landscape architect Michael van Gessel who performed together with the Polish studio Jojko + Nawrocki Architekci.

An underground pavilion with a wide spiral staircase

The task was to create a Garden of the XXI century in the Lazienki park with an area of 2.5 hectares, which would not be only an example of modern landscape architecture, but also a teaching aid for environmental education. In the interpretation of the winners this undulating landscape covers an exhibition hall of 1800 m2. This construction contains 4 rooms with a modular layout: two large and two small rooms. It is designed for organizing temporary exhibitions from the museums based in the palaces and pavilions of Lazienki and foreign exhibitions.

The halls will let natural lights pass in through the round holes in the roof.