Small is Beautiful

3. Semester autumn 2015
Prof. Tom Emerson
with: Robin Barmettler

In this project, the goal was to have the most impact with an as small as possible intervention. We took it upon us to use the concept of a “Tanzlinde” to minimize our impact on a protected building ground.

In ancient days the „Tanzlinde“ was quite common. Its roots are in the nordic mythology, where Yggdrasyl was the tree of life which held the whole earth. During the Middle Ages, the Linden was a common tree in the middle of a village. It was used as a tree under which leaves people were judged and sentenced. This practice evolved to a more people-friendly practice where the Linden was lead in a way to support a dance floor. People used to gather and have feasts in this platform in the tree. One the next page will be a map of all the „Tanzlinden“ in the german speaking part of Europe. The process of leading the young seedling to a full-grown tree took quite some time, and even with extensive care success was not always guaranteed.

A lot of the trees died because of beetle infestation or mould growth. But some of them survived and the biggest of those is a Linden in Limmersdorf. Its trunk has a circumference of 7 meters and the dance floor measures about 50 meters on the outside which means about 200 square meters. This Linden is 330 years old and can still be used for dancing. Its branches together with the platform are held by around 100 columns. The next picture shows a ground floor plan of these columns with the tree trunk in its middle.