“This book traces the career of the German-Algerian Kamel Louafi, who ended up in Germany at the age of 27, where he stayed, studied and became a landscape architect,” advertises the blurb for Stefan Leppert’s book “Kamel Louafi – Gärten zwischen Algier und Berlin”. A modest description for a renowned landscape architect like Kamel Louafi. His breakthrough came with the design of the EXPO 2000 world exhibition in Hanover. Around 23 years later, he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for his work. In his book, Leppert follows Louafi’s professional and personal career and outlines the special characteristics of his design philosophy.
Stefan Leppert himself is a trained nursery gardener and studied landscape gardening at the University of Applied Sciences before joining Garten + Landschaft as an editor in 1995. Five years later, he set up his own editorial office and has been working as an author, photographer and journalist ever since. Among other things, he has translated several garden books and published his own works – including the German Garden Book Award-winning “Gardens and Desert”. He got to know landscape architect Kamel Louafi during his time at Garten + Landschaft, when he portrayed him in 1997 for the Landscape Architecture in Profile series.
A few years have passed since then and a lot has happened. Kamel Louafi is one of the big names in landscape architecture and Leppert has accompanied him over the decades. In 2020, the landscape architect retired from active office life and in 2024, Leppert finally published the book about Kamel Louafi. When asked why he portrayed Louafi, the author himself writes in the foreword: “Beyond his art of garden and landscape design, it also has to do with this way of giving of oneself, with this awareness of togetherness, with an attitude in the profession and in society”.
Leppert traces this attitude over around 175 pages. He begins with excerpts from Louafi’s career. Among other things, he describes his youth in Algeria and how his family has shaped him to this day. He goes into Kamel Louafi’s work as a cartographer and how this led him to Germany for the first time through a forestry project in collaboration with the Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit in 1979. He then went on to study landscape planning at the TU Berlin. After graduating, he joined MKW Müller Knippschild Wehberg – now Lützow 7, without Elmar Knippschild – and worked as a project manager on large and complex projects such as the gardens at the Jewish Museum Berlin and the open spaces at the Heinz Galinski School in Charlottenburg. Leppert already sees Louafi’s attitude of putting his work at the service of overcoming religious differences in these first projects: “Louafi was always concerned with placing this cultural motivation at the center of his work, building bridges, overcoming boundaries.”
Louafi finally left the office in 1994 and after a brief partnership with Jörg Saupe, he decided to concentrate solely on landscape architecture competitions. This strategy paid off: in 1996 he won the competition to design the Expo 2000 in Hanover – a gigantic planning project that made him internationally famous. In his book, Leppert only briefly outlines the design of the sub-areas, including the Gardens in Transition, EXPO Park South and Park Agricole. In addition to the planning concepts, he describes the challenges that Louafi had to overcome during the planning of the Expo. In addition to the high expectations placed on a little-known architect at the time, there were also unforeseen obstacles, such as the incorrect fertilization of 2,000 trees, which had to be laboriously flushed out. In the end, everything went well and Louafi made a name for himself.
Although commissions beckoned, Louafi downsized his office again after EXPO2000 and continued to design himself. And he continued to limit himself to pure landscape architecture projects. Leppert quotes him as saying that once you have found your own style, you completely lose your understanding of the sometimes strange ideas and wishes of building architects. Later in the book, the author uses other projects to explain what defines Louafi’s style. The landscape architect Louafi says: “It was always important for me to derive the essential elements of my designs from an abstract or literary or philosophical sentence, a formulation.”
Leppert illustrates this approach with several projects, including the Oriental-Islamic Garden in Berlin-Marzahn, designs for the bays of Algiers and Doha as well as various exhibition concepts. A particular highlight of the book is a tour through Berlin, in which Louafi introduces personal places. There is also a chapter with a question-and-answer dialog between the author and the landscape architect, which provides additional insights into his way of thinking as well as his everyday life.
The last third of the book contains a special treat. Leppert accompanies Louafi on a tour of Berlin, showing him personal places. Furthermore, one chapter is structured as a short question-and-answer game between the author and the landscape architect.
Elsewhere, however, the book also strikes a more serious note. In three chapters entitled Being Foreign, Leppert addresses the difficulties that Louafi faced as an Algerian architect in Germany. These include not only discriminatory experiences in the university context, but also the frequent disregard for his important projects and person, as well as tensions with the German Society for Garden Art and Landscape Culture (DGGL). In fact, many honors only came after the end of his active planning career. In 2023, he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, among other honors.
Leppert writes about all these events in light, easy language, as if talking to an old friend. Occasional photographs and plan illustrations complement the writing. At the end there is an exhibition of realized and unrealized projects. Overall, the book provides an exciting overview – but it also touches on topics that would be desirable to explore in more depth.
One small point of criticism is the brevity of some of the chapters. Louafi’s life’s work would certainly have offered enough material for a deeper and more detailed examination. Nevertheless, the book offers an exciting insight into his work and arouses curiosity for a further examination of his work. Leppert succeeds in impressively portraying the essence of Louafi’s attitude and architectural philosophy.
“Kamel Louafi – Gardens between Algiers and Berlin” is a successful biography that not only traces the career of a remarkable landscape architect, but also captures his social and cultural attitude. With a successful mixture of specialist knowledge, personal anecdotes and photographic insights, the book offers an enriching read for both experts and those with a general interest.
