by Ron van der Ploeg
BERLIN, November 20, 2009: Berlin will host the 2017 IGA, Germany’s  world horticultural exhibition following an announcement on Wednesday November 18 by the DBG, the association of German horticultural exhibitions. IGA 2017 will be held at the site of Berlin’s former airport Tempelhof, which is located in the middle of the city, close to the Kreuzberg and Neukolln districts. The site includes an area of 230 ha, a perfect size to organize an international horticultural exhibition.
IGA 2017 aims to transform Tempelhof’s  austere beauty into an even nicer green oasis, a 21st Century Park  with “the freedom of vast blue sky above large open meadows”. IGA 2017 is also meant to be an attractive place for sports, recreation and as a place of encounters between different scenes and cultures.
Herker Heinz, chairman of DBG and the Federation of German Horticulture ZVG is thrilled to bits about the combination of Berlin and IGA when he says, "Berlin has presented a solid plan for a site with historical value and deserved to win. The German horticulture sector is pleased with this decision and looks forward to an exciting collaboration.”
According to senator Ingeborg Junge-Reyer, IGA Berlin, 2017, is set to become the engine behind the future development of the Tempelhof park which will become known by a wide audience and will make Berlin even greener and more attractive.
The 170-day event is already  registered as an international world exhibition by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) in Paris and promises to be significantly larger than Berlin’s famous Tiergarten park.
Tempelhof, designed by Ernst Sagebiel and built between1936 and 1941, operated until October 2008 when dwindling passenger numbers led to the closure of the facility. It is most famous as the West Berlin airport where Allied pilots continuously brought supplies into the city in 1948-49 as the Soviets tried to starve the city into submission during the Berlin Airlift. The 1936 Nazi-era terminal – which is more than one kilometer in length – is a rather challenging element to integrate into the exhibition.
The IGA is held once every ten years. The last one was in 2003 in Rostock. The reason to organize the next IGA in 2017 has to do with the world horticultural expo Floriade 2012.  The schedule of the IGA Expo has been changed to year dates comprising a seven rather than a three to keep a sufficient time period between IGA and the organization of the Floriade in neighbouring country Holland.