The fall of the Berlin Wall also marked the beginning of a new era for landscape architecture. After reunification and the associated withdrawal of the Allied troops still stationed there, many areas that had previously been used for military purposes became available. Although industrial structural change had already begun, particularly in the Ruhr area and Saarland, large conversion areas became available, especially in the new federal states. Due to the change of system, the stricter environmental laws, the loss of Eastern European markets and the sometimes inadequate efforts to survive, many companies in the new federal states had to give up. Among other things, this led to a considerable exodus of younger people in particular, as they could no longer find work locally. As a result, there were considerable vacancies in housing and social infrastructure. This resulted in new open space-related tasks for planning, with open space playing a particularly important role - for example in the urban redevelopment of eastern Germany in Leipzig, Halle and Dessau.

During the brief period of the independent, democratically elected GDR government, the then Deputy Environment Minister Michael Succow, supported by the FRG Environment Minister Klaus Töpfer, established the national park program, which placed around 5,000 km² under protection, and incorporated it into the Unification Treaty.

After reunification, the West German planning system was extended to the new federal states, which entailed numerous tasks in landscape planning. The remediation of environmental damage was also a far-reaching task. The changeover required considerable training, and the administrations were supported by colleagues from the old federal states. The chambers and the bdla helped with the new opportunities, and in some cases constraints, for freelance work.

The new tasks also led to a renaissance of design as a focal point of landscape architecture, after a decade with a more ecological focus. At universities, the newly awakened interest in design was already apparent in the mid-1980s. Developments in France and Barcelona were the main role models. Due to the large number of new design tasks, more and more competitions were held and the transition from postmodernism on the one hand and the natural garden on the other to the second modernism began. The design for Berlin's Mauerpark is an example of this. The competition for the design was won by Gustav Lange.

The need to deal with the relics of industrial and conversion areas also gave rise to a completely new type of open space in the form of the post-industrial park. The design by the Latz office deserves special mention here

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalparkprogramm_der_DDR, Zugriff am 27.10.2013

Garten + Landschaft 10/ 2012, S.38 -39, 11/2012, S. 36 – 39; 12 /2012, S. 34 - 37