Landscape architect Richard Bödeker died.

An obituary by Stefan Leppert

German landscape architecture lost a pioneer in November 2019: Richard Bödeker died at 85 in Mettmann near Düsseldorf.

Long before anyone mouthed the word globalization and countries outside their own were perceived as opportunities and markets, Richard Bödeker left his mark elsewhere in the world. Bödeker's lasting impact since the mid-1970s will be in Saudi Arabia, a country whose contact with the world at that time consisted almost exclusively in the exchange of oil and money.

Richard Bödeker and then with him Horst Wagenfeld, Armin Boyer, David Elsworth and other planners performed small miracles, especially in the capital Riyadh. They created private gardens and public parks, greened streets, and transformed neglected wadis into recreational spaces. This was only possible thanks to Bödeker's irrepressible power of persuasion to no longer allow impure wastewater to seep uselessly into the desert, but rather to clean it and use it to irrigate trees.

In 1989, Richard Bödeker received the coveted Aga Khan Award for the master plan and open space planning of the diplomatic quarter in Riyadh. In 2001, the planning of "King Abdulaziz Central Park" in the Saudi metropolis was honored in the German Landscape Architecture Award competition.

Until the end of his life, Saudi Arabia remained a life's work. As recently as March 2019, he traveled to Riyadh to explain his "green first" philosophy to ministers, princes, mayors and representatives of planning groups.

Of the countless foreign planners who have been and are currently working in Saudi Arabia, Richard Bödeker was probably the only one whom the royal family called a friend. This can be attributed to his engaging demeanor and unwavering advocacy of his cause.

Not to be underestimated, however, is his intensive study of the geography, history and culture of the foreign country, which greatly differentiated his image of that country and made pigeonholing impossible. The fact that Bödeker has made the lives of all Saudis and the foreigners working there freer and healthier by creating public parks forces any thought of whether working for this absolutist-ruled empire is politically correct to its knees. The result has long since proven him right.

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