realities:united, in collaboration with the engineering firm schlaich bergermann partner, are creating an interplay of Ferris wheel and water basin with their artwork - a fusion of old and new, past and future.

A new, circular basin cuts unflinchingly through the ancient terrain to form a new element. Though the topography has been significantly modified, it clearly remains subject to the influences of the past. The giant Ferris wheel caught between old and new becomes a symbol of the site's transformation, simultaneously carrying on its former function as an amusement park with an eye to the future, and at the same time canceling it out.

Much of the former layout remains intact within realities:united's concept: The Ferris wheel will be rebuilt slightly rotated at its familiar site. The majority of its structural elements, which were installed in 1989 on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the GDR, will be reused. The new gondolas are round and reminiscent in design of the even older Ferris wheel construction from 1969. At the feet of the rebuilt Ferris wheel, the landscape has shifted. It teeters between the former water basin, now fallen into disuse, and recently added elements. The Ferris wheel's structure has been fundamentally modified and, thanks to close collaboration with its engineers, is now supported on only one side by four of its former eight main pillars. The remaining load is carried by guy ropes: leaving the Ferris wheel literally suspended in mid-air. It is a strong and contradictory sign that the artists make, in reference to the decades-long history and transformation of the park.

The new water basin forms the center of the park and serves as a source and reserve for the surrounding landscape. The wheel that towers over it stands with its feet in the dry and broken concrete floor of the former basin. This ruined landscape will be perforated and planted with new trees to be left to decay and reclaimed by nature in the long term.

The emblem of the former Spreepark becomes a metaphor that reconciles all the contradictions: as an image of rupture, incompleteness, loss and transience on the one hand, but also of restoration, lightness, boldness, dynamism and power on the other. The wheel balances between opposites, times and places: between the past of the park - the former water basin in which it is rooted - and the present, the new water basin into which it reaches.