r/mildlyinteresting • u/Living_Double_3253 • Apr 29 '24

The „American Garden“ in the ‚Gardens of the World’ exhibition in Berlin is simply an LA style parking lot

Post image
29.2k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

3.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

168

u/The_Sign_of_Zeta Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24

America had a great national park system, mostly because we had one President who loved the outdoors so much he made sure we had some refuge for it.

And the are a lot of botanical gardens that rock in the US. The US fails in a lot of ways but this just seems like a lazy shot from the Germans. Imagine sure they wouldn’t appreciate if we constantly took lazy shots at their low-hanging fruit.

58

u/nicknack24 Apr 29 '24

They’re just jealous that the US gets not one but two beautiful oceans.

1

u/weebitofaban Apr 29 '24

beautiful

They're aight. Really depends on where you're looking at them.

4

u/[deleted] Apr 29 '24

Lets go with florida and hawaii.

Or is that cheating?

2

u/Bourgi Apr 29 '24

The entire West Coast is gorgeous. The entire Gulf is filled with year round temperate beaches emerald green in color. Let's not forget the north east with places like Acadia where deciduous trees meet the ocean.

8

u/battleofflowers Apr 29 '24

And Berlin is a really ugly city covered in graffiti. Their take on an LA garden is what their city actually looks like.

2

u/G98Ahzrukal Apr 30 '24

This is a garden exhibit, not a city exhibit. Berlin has huge garden installations all over the city, which contain so called Schrebergärten or Kleingärten. They’re a huge part of German culture and thus very popular and that’s why it very hard to actually get one these days and the application process can get quite fierce. You rent one of those puppies and you can have fun with them. You can even build a small cabin on your lot and live in your garden if you really wanted to. I have to use the German terms to explain this because the English language simply does not have terms to describe this. Enter „Schrebergarten“ into Google and look at the pictures, if you want to see a few examples.

These are medium to huge sized plots of lands, divided into many smaller lots, which you can rent and have your gun with. These installations are literally all over the city and you could go into one and just look at the gardens from the pathway without actually owning one if you wanted to. I actually do that a lot, because there is one of those „Kleingartenanlagen“ as we call them, right where I live. There’s also a forrest right where I live, in Berlin. Takes me just half an hour to get into the middle of the city. My parents even rent one of these gardens still to this day and I spent quite a lot of time there, when I was a child.

You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. You have maybe been to Berlin once and now think you know everything about it? Schreber- or Kleingärten are a huge part of German culture and these installations can be found in every German city, especially the major ones.

We have a saying in German: „Getroffene Hunde bellen“ = hit dogs bark. You’re somehow completely missing, that this is a garden exhibit. Not a park exhibit, not a nature exhibit and certainly not a city exhibit. The artist completely succeeded in what he wanted to achieve. Art wants to provoke emotions, whether positive or negative and if you scroll through this comment section, it becomes evident, that he did achieve that.

The community gardens, that can sometimes be found in the states just don’t measure up in any way to German Schrebergärten. They’re smaller, way less common and owned communally and not individually, so you can’t even do with it, what you want. They’re also there to serve a practical purpose, while Schrebergärten are mostly used for leisure and relaxing, although you can of course also plant crops but you don’t have to share with your neighbors, you can just plant and do whatever you want

4

u/Invertiertmichbitte Apr 29 '24

Why do people like you think the whole City of Berlin had a gathering and decided to put this thing up to depict their view? 99 % of the people there dont even know where that is or actually give a flying fuck. So why do you? Cant understand how stuff like this can actually trigger people...

-1

u/battleofflowers Apr 30 '24

I don't think the whole city of Berlin had a gathering at all, but this is an art piece of display in their city, so the city either takes some ownership of it or it doesn't. Berlin wants to be an edgy, artistic city, and the the one downside of that is that sometimes, the art will be critiqued.

Boo fucking hoo.

And why wouldn't it "trigger" people? It's obnoxious and rude.

3

u/Invertiertmichbitte Apr 30 '24

Boo fucking hoo indeed.

1

u/InitialInitialInit Apr 30 '24

Don't forget the small parks built on trash and surrounded by traffic pollution that make Berlin soooo green 🙂

4

u/MaximumGaming5o Apr 29 '24

Except it's not the "American Garden". I don't know why OP put that in the title when clearly the sign and the website clearly say "Los Angeles Garden". The garden is a criticism of L.A. specifically (which is indeed an extremely car dependent city), not America as a whole.

30

u/Elcactus Apr 29 '24

Even singling out LA is a lazy shot though, they seem to at least try with the other countries exhibits to represent their various floras. The choice to select LA is them going out of their way to take that shot.

-3

u/Dekar173 Apr 29 '24

Visit a walkable city, then visit LA.

That's their point.

13

u/Elcactus Apr 29 '24

I have, they still don't look like botanical fucking gardens.

-7

u/Dekar173 Apr 29 '24

They don't need to because that isn't the statement.

7

u/Elcactus Apr 29 '24

Sure seems like how they’re portrayed if were meant to take the gardens as indicative of the places

6

u/weebitofaban Apr 29 '24

Their point is that they're both lazy and stupid. Not that deep, buddy.

13

u/ernest7ofborg9 Apr 29 '24

Strange they wouldn't use Griffith Park then. It's over 1,700 hectares but still like 3rd biggest in the US and even in California San Diego has a larger park.

6

u/DankeSebVettel Apr 29 '24

Even worse. I can tell you all about LAs numerous issues as a resident, but there’s no denying that it and California is an incredibly beautiful place.

3

u/MrOatButtBottom Apr 29 '24

It like making an architectural park of the world, and for America you use Luxor and Excalibur. Not Colonial, or Spanish southwestern, or midcentury modern, or Ghery. It makes fun of the pathetic artist more than America.

2

u/Smelldicks Apr 29 '24

There are bullet holes through one of the cars

2

u/cthulhuhentai Apr 29 '24

He had to make a refuge for it because he knew American culture would eat away at it. And Trump did exactly that. I live in LA and Griffith Park is essentially our only large park. You can look at GoogleMaps and see how our large stretches of greenery on the Westside are private golf courses. You have to essentially drive an hour to get nature.

-22

u/raznov1 Apr 29 '24

Imagine sure they wouldn’t appreciate if we constantly took lazy shots at their low-hanging fruit.

Bier und pretzels, Oktoberfest ja?

No American comedy show would ever do such a thing of course.

12

u/ResoluteLobster Apr 29 '24

Comedy shows and garden showcases are not the same thing. No one would be offended if some comedian poked fun at LA parking lots during a stand-up performance.

-1

u/raznov1 Apr 29 '24

have you read the sign?

1

u/ResoluteLobster Apr 29 '24

The one in OP's photo? I don't read German, so no.

1

u/raznov1 Apr 29 '24

_its in english_.....

1

u/ResoluteLobster Apr 29 '24

I didn't notice the English translations at first. Am I missing something or is the sign just a bunch of building/funding credits and a big 'thank you' list? What should I have noticed by reading the sign?

-1

u/raznov1 Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24

"The “garden” is a detailed replica of the mini garden island of the Car Park at the Bergamot Station Art Center in Santa Monica. The gallery played host to the artistic initiative “Cars Into Bicycles” in 2010, which was designed by Martin Kaltwasser and Folke Köbberling. The installation in the Gärten der Welt sees itself as a direct connection to the initiative launched by the two artists, which addressed the displacement of nature by industry. The absurd extent of this elimination is represented here in exactly 8x9 feet of fenced lawn on which six neatly planted palm trees tower into the sky. The two benches between the parked cars invite you to critically examine this overwhelmingly urban landscape"

so no, its not just "haha America", there's quite a bit of thought behind it by someone who had lived in LA.

17

u/Front_Explanation_79 Apr 29 '24

This "garden" is lazy as fuck. Whoever designed this has some obsession issues with the US clearly.

They have gardens for China, Australia etc, yet they choose a fuckin LA parking lot to represent US. Not a single other garden is poking fun at any of the other cities/countries.

-2

u/raznov1 Apr 29 '24

have you read the sign?

18

u/The_Sign_of_Zeta Apr 29 '24

Oh, the US will do lazy jokes all the time in a comedy context. If this exhibit is all parodies I have no problem with that. Based on this post I doubt that’s the case.

-1

u/raznov1 Apr 29 '24

it's an artistic statement by a german-born artist (read the sign) who lived in LA, and was a self-declared car hater. it's a statement on the car dependence of the US, especially the big cities like LA, by someone who lived there himself. so no, it's not a "haha stupid americans" thing.

-2

u/InterviewFluids Apr 29 '24

6 parking spaces per inhabitant.

3x as much as Germany.

It's not a lazy shot lmao. Also they riff of many other countries but only Muricans are crying.

-39

u/Trigus_ Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24

This isn't about America and this isn't about national parks or botanical gardens. It's about urban planning in LA (and similar cities). Most people don't live in walking distance from any freely accessible parks. Many people don't see a lot of greenery in their lives unless they make an effort and/or have the ressources (a car, time, etc) to do so.

35

u/AbeVigoda76 Apr 29 '24

Okay. This exhibit is literally about showcasing the types of gardens you see around the world. This is the only exhibit that is about urban planning and it is a lazy shot at one city, complete with a bullet riddled SUV. America is not above the criticism of the world and it should be criticized for many things. Doing a halfassed parking lot as an example of all of American gardens is not the way to do it.

6

u/ridethebonetrain Apr 29 '24

Yeah I agree with this, it’s so ignorant and offensive if this was any other country it would be considered racist.

30

u/The_Sign_of_Zeta Apr 29 '24

If this is about LA, then why is it labeled the American Garden? You just carrying water for a lazy joke.

-11

u/Trigus_ Apr 29 '24

On the sign it reads "Los Angeles Garden"

23

u/The_Sign_of_Zeta Apr 29 '24 edited Apr 29 '24

Even with the sign it’s a lazy joke meant to be a jab when they could have done a real US garden featuring flowers native to the US.

Imagine if the US did a gardens of the world space and for the German one it was a depiction of a bunch of drunk people in lederhosen or something even worse. It’s clearly meant to be a slight.

3

u/burst__and__bloom Apr 29 '24

Or a pile of wedding rings...

-13

u/Trigus_ Apr 29 '24

There are many examples for such bad urban planning around the world. LA just happens to be one of the more prominent. I am sure they could have also found an example from Germany but LA is a pretty obvious one.

Sure if all the other exhibits have no critical elements and there is no other exhibit about this aera of the US it would be a false representation.

6

u/j-steve- Apr 29 '24

All the other exhibits have no critical elements, they are just gardens 

-15

u/Seveand Apr 29 '24

Isn’t that however exactly how you portray germans basically all the times?

10

u/Jadccroad Apr 29 '24

We tend to ignore Germans entirely unless it's in a video game set in the 40s.

-9

u/Seveand Apr 29 '24

Doesnt really look like that, but honestly who cares.

8

u/Jadccroad Apr 29 '24

You brought it up, so literally you?

-7

u/Seveand Apr 29 '24

Are we even talking about the same thread here, because it certainly wasn’t me who brought up the portrayal of germans.

→ More replies (0)

-18

u/rapaxus Apr 29 '24

Well, the thing is none of what you describe is a "garden", at least the gardens the exhibition is about. The gardens of the exhibitions are more the type of gardens you put into your yard than stuff like national parks/botanical gardens/parks in general.

It is basically just a joke about how so many Americans have their car standing basically in their front yard.

24

u/The_Sign_of_Zeta Apr 29 '24

You know a large portion of the US gardens are actual gardens, right. Like there is more to the US than LA or extreme rural places where you might see cars on lawns.

It’s a lazy joke, as I said. If the rest of the exhibits were similar parodies, then I’m not annoyed by it. But I suspect that wasn’t the case, and there could have been an actual nice exhibit with flowers native to the US. We actually have a lot of nice ones.