2nd Prize: “Protection or Development of a Cultural Landscape”
Insel Hombroich (Neuss, Germany)
“Art in parallel to Nature” – the motto of Museum Insel Hombroich captures the spirit of the museum’s fostering concept of creating a space as an ideal in both museum and landscape terms. It is a daylight museum with ten walk-in sculptures some of which are used as exhibition buildings. It was conceived by art collector Karl-Heinrich Müller, in conjunction with the artists Gotthard Graubner (installation of the collection), Erwin Heerich (walk-in sculptures) and Bernhard Korte (landscaping).
Opened to the public in 1987, it comprises a 21-hectares, conservation-grade landscape, where the design of a floodplain landscape was carefully enhanced. Bernhard Korte has realised an ideal landscape that does justice to all, the local topography, its history and the vision of art parallel to nature. At the heart is the historical Insel Hombroich, a 19th century park, which had long been abandoned. Adjacent farmland was soon bought in and landscaped into a wetland/meadow feature. The grounds are modelled by existing gradations in the topography and by former meanders of the river.
Today, this real cultural landscape is a museum and a place where artists live and work. It is a domain for architecture, nature, and cultural events.
(Image: Pohl+Gruessen)
