Wendersplatz, Neuss: from parking lot to colourful landscape

Wendersplatz provides a special entrance to the event: an area that has so far been used mainly as a parking lot has been temporarily transformed into a multi-layered landscape space. The square acts as both a prelude and a transition between the city and the exhibition grounds.

The interim design of the formerly dismissed site is based on the “Chromatic Grounds” concept, developed by LAND Germany in cooperation with JSWD Architekten. The project translates the guiding theme of the Federal Garden Show “Traces of the Future” into a spatial and visual experience. Coloured surfaces and graphic markings, which were realised by Stadtgrün Ruhr GmbH, structure the space and create orientation, while at the same time creating identity and atmosphere. The square thus becomes a painted “red carpet”, leading visitors into the garden show.

The focus lies on the landscape approach: raised flowerbeds with a variety of plantings, custom-made by BRUNS Manufaktur (August Bruns GmbH & Co. KG), bring vegetation and seasonal dynamism into the urban space. Wide, unsealed recreation areas and plantings create a pleasant microclimate for rest and relaxation. Wendersplatz thus becomes a temporary urban ecosystem: a place where nature is not mere decoration but rather acts as a formative infrastructure.

Artistic contributions, including a sculpture by renowned Düsseldorf artist Thomas Schönauer and works by local graffiti artist Alessandro Althaus (Oldhaus), add cultural levels to the space and reinforce its identity as a public place of experience.

The square is complemented by a variety of activities: gastronomic offerings, seating areas and cultural impulses as well as the Ferris wheel “Sky Lounge Wheel” by the fairground company Bruch, which reveals new perspectives on the city and the garden exhibition from a height of 58 meters. With the Future Campus of the Middle Lower Rhine Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK), Wendersplatz also acts a place of dialogue about innovation, technology and career prospects.

„The interim use of Wendersplatz at the entrance to LAGA Neuss 2026 highlights the fundamental role of open space in our cities. ‘Open space creates urban space’, especially when it moves beyond decoration and becomes a driver of transformation. Art and nature play a key role in this process. The Cultivator sculpture by Düsseldorf artist Thomas Schönauer stands as a powerful expression of this idea,” says Andreas Kipar, founder and CEO of LAND.

For the city of Neuss, the project marks an important step: „Wendersplatz is an example of the momentum that the Federal Garden Show provides for the development of our city. As a new entrance to the event area, an attractive urban space was created here that connects the city centre and the exhibition grounds in a special way“, says Reiner Breuer, mayor of Neuss.

Until the permanent redesign after the Federal Garden Show, Wendersplatz will remain a temporary experimental field: a place that shows how landscape can initiate urban transformation, making it visible and tangible.

More about the project: here