Behind the Ludwig Forum there is an enchanted garden where nature meets culture. Since the foundation of the Ludwig Forum in 1991, the park had lost a fair bit of its quality until, in 2010, the landscape artists of atelier le balto took on the task of getting it back into shape. In the framework of their project “LUFO PARK”, set to run for four years, the first thing Marc Pouzol, Véronique Faucheur and Marc Vatinel got to grips with was the overgrown vegetation. Thomas Virnich’s sculpture at the edge of the small grove of trees can now be much better appreciated. Clearly identifiable spaces and views have been created or restored. Two platforms, one in the shady grove and the other on the sun lawn, function as meeting places, quiet zones and stages. Corresponding to the two platforms, two so-called “park cells” have been established. “Petite Nature No. 1” on the sun lawn has been planted with ten different plum trees (genus: prunus domestica) and with Asian and European raspberry bushes. In “Petite Nature No. 2” in the grove of trees, shade plants are now growing under the older trees.
Every year, the trio and their team from Le Havre and Berlin come to Aachen for four weeks to do the gardening. Anyone who is interested is welcome to come along and chat with them – or to get involved in the work! This is how it came about that the garden artists worked with children to plant flower bulbs in a nearby primary school.
Over the past years, atelier le balto has made an international name for itself, for example with the park of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2002) or the garden of the Villa Romana in Florence (since 2008).
The redesign of the LUFO Park is funded within the framework of the urban area development programme “Soziale Stadt Aachen-Nord” (Social City of Aachen-North) by: European Union Union Investment in Our Future – European Regional Development Fund, Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung (Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development), Ministerium für Familie, Kinder, Jugend und Sport des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry for Families, Children, Youth, Culture and Sport), STAWAG (Aachen Public Utilities)
