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Young international planners honoured at the 2026 Peter Joseph Lenné Competition

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A competition with a long tradition and international renown

At a gala awards ceremony held at the Academy of Arts in Berlin on 9 October 2026, the winners of the 51st Peter Joseph Lenné Competition were honoured. Around 300 guests attended the event. The State of Berlin’s international ideas competition recognises innovative concepts from the next generation of professionals in the fields of landscape planning, open-space architecture and urban development.

With a total of 99 entries, the 2026 competition was one of the most popular in recent decades. The organisers praised the international participation: emerging planners from numerous countries, including Australia, China, Denmark, the UK, Italy and the USA, submitted their designs.

Awards for forward-looking planning ideas
The prizes were awarded in the Regional, National and International categories. The winning entries address current challenges in the design of open spaces and sustainable urban development.
In the Regional/Berlin category, Julius Schwarz from Berlin impressed the jury with his design on the theme ‘Open Spaces in the Age of Climate Change – Ideas for Tilla-Durieux Park’.
The prize in the National/Freiburg im Breisgau category went to Junyi Fan from Shenzhen, China. The award recognised the project ‘Public Spaces in Transition – A Vision for West Freiburg’.
In the International/Prague category, Luca Bennet Fritz from Laubach, Manuel Eberts from Mannheim and Kaja Lipka from Darmstadt were honoured for their concept ‘Žižkov Freight Depot – A Catalyst for Sustainable Neighbourhood Development’.

The winners of the 2026 Lenné Prize. © Julia Merkel

The State of Berlin promotes innovative ideas
The Peter Joseph Lenné Competition has been organised by the State of Berlin since 1964. In 2026, the Senate Department for Mobility, Transport, Climate Protection and the Environment provided a total of 24,000 euros in prize money (prizes of 5,000 euros each; honourable mentions of 3,000 euros each).
In addition, the Karl Foerster Foundation awarded its Karl Foerster Honourary Awards, totalling 1,500 euros. Jiewen Hu, Zicheng Zhao, Yuehui Gong and Kwan Yu Chung (all from the USA, Task A), Junyi Fan (China, Task B) and Zhiyu Zhang (USA, Task C) were honoured for their particularly successful use of plants.

The competition, whose partners include the Association of German Landscape Architects (bdla), offers young planners an international platform to present forward-looking ideas for climate-adapted open spaces, liveable public spaces and sustainable urban development.

The Peter Joseph Lenné Prize of the State of Berlin