Design Map · Eindhoven
Beton, Wald und Himmel
Graduation project by Paula Schulte at Design Academy Eindhoven, 2026. Shown during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven on Design Map, location F5.
Beton, Wald und Himmel’ proposes a hike along the German post-war landscape of the Westwall. The Westwall, one of the largest remnants of the Second World War, is a defensive line along Germany's Western frontier constructed during the National Socialist period in the late 1930s. Today, many of the Westwall’s concrete remains have become protected monuments and remain scattered across the region. Through field research and interviews with experts, Paula Schulte uncovered the landscape’s deep entanglement with violence, extraction and militarisation. Over time, this violence has become increasingly obscured as vegetation gradually took over. In an effort to confront visitors with the reality of the land they explore, the hike is structured through four perceptual tools and a map. Each tool reveals a layer of the landscape referencing the elements of concrete, forest and sky. Rather than offering a single reading, the work approaches the landscape as a terrain where histories, perceptions and realities remain entangled.