"Playing with the possibilities" is what Palmengarten director Katja Heubach calls what the show garden has planned for this year, in which it has been celebrating its 150th anniversary. This botanical garden stands for tradition and history, of course, says Heubach, but the fact that it still exists today as the “figurehead of the city” and that it has neither lost its area nor its importance, that has a lot to do with the fact that those responsible always do too moved with the times. With the question “What does the future look like?” They turned to the Institute for Material Design at the University of Design in Offenbach in the anniversary year. His answer is extraordinary and expansive. It can be seen and heard in the palm garden until the end of October, and looks very different in daylight than in twilight and at night.

Mechthild Harting

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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    "Imd_plant transistor" is the title of the spatial object overgrown with numerous plants, which was installed on the large playground in the north of the Palmengarten, directly in front of the Leonhardsbrunn house.

    Exotic, almost "a bit extraterrestrial", this pavilion appears, says director Heubach, like an "own organism".

    Above all, however, it seems "very future-oriented".

    For around a year, eight students from the design course in the material design department dealt with the palm garden and its "transformations over the years".

    They started from the basic assumption that the show garden should be a place in the city where plants, nature and people meet.

    With their object they want to show what this interaction could look like in the future.

    A special acoustic dimension

    The special spatial structure of this pavilion results from thick bundles of willow branches, curved in the form of the Fibonacci sequence. Like all the plant materials in the installation, the willow branches come from the palm garden itself and were wired and woven into bundles by the students. This structure is largely covered with a white, multi-layer textile membrane. According to the students, the fact that this fabric has large holes in some places, but looks more like a spider's web in others, has to do with the fact that they wanted to orientate themselves towards nature when designing the membrane, which is a special play of light and shadow offers.

    Anyone who approaches the pavilion quickly perceives that another dimension is opening up here: the acoustic. Because electrodes are connected to the plants that measure impulses and convert them into light and sound. It does not register any communication between the plants, but rather the noises that humans in particular make when they approach the planting, for example to water the plants. But it can also be caused by insects and birds or just a breath of wind, which can be heard as a noise or sound on the plants draped on the small hills and which are made audible via a synthesizer. At the same time, the noise impulses are also displayed via colored LED light strings - a visualizationwhich only shows its full effect at dusk and after dark.

    “We want to make it possible to experience that something is stirring on the plants and that you can enter into communication with the plants,” says Leonard Neunzerling, one of the design students. There are a total of seven such stations in the pavilion, which measure the impulses on the plants and translate them into light and “sound”. The devices are hidden under the hills, which are studded with sage, incense, fragrant pelargonium and various climbing plants. The gardeners of the palm garden are confident that not only will the people conquer the pavilion for themselves, but also the plants and the entire structure will grow in more and more. The overall arrangement is complemented by large palm trees in pots, because, according to Neunzerling, they are inevitably part of this show garden and that will not change in the future either.

    The light installation requires a lot of patience from visitors to the Palmengarten who do not have an annual pass - access is possible until 10 p.m. Because the garden closes at 7 p.m., but allows you to stay until it is dark. Director Heubach also wants to offer evening tours again soon, now that the palm garden is finally freely accessible again, without any admission restrictions or visitor registrations.