Old Botanical Garden (Tübingen)

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Small avenue of plane trees in place of the former orangery in the old botanical garden

The Old Botanical Garden in Tübingen is a city ​​park that was originally the Botanical Garden of the University of Tübingen . It is located north of the old town between the street Am Stadtgraben (formerly Grabenstraße) on the filled in Stadtgraben and the Ammer or Rümelinstraße. To the east, the complex closes off Wilhelmstrasse, which was built in the 19th century on the site of the old route to Lustnau . Its central location - the garden borders directly on the old town of Tübingen - makes it very attractive for both residents and visitors.

history

Plan of the botanical garden around 1900 (Grabenstrasse above)

The beginnings of a botanical garden in Tübingen go back to the botanical doctor Leonhard Fuchs , who laid out a medicinal herb garden at the nunnery in 1535 . The locations of the gardens changed several times.

Today's Old Botanical Garden goes back to Duke Friedrich , who ordered the facility in a decree of 1804 and commissioned Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer with the construction. The garden was created between 1806 and 1809 at a place where the so-called Tummelgarten was already at the beginning of the 17th century, which was used by the noble students of the Collegium Illustre for fights and tournaments. In the back of the garden, by the Ammer, a palm house was built. In June 1865 a trade exhibition took place in the greenhouse, which King Karl also visited on his homage tour through Württemberg . Of the photographers, only Carl Baumann and his son Carl Immanuel presented their work there . In 1886 a new building was built at this point, which consisted of glass panels and metal struts, but contained stylistic elements of the Neo-Renaissance and Art Nouveau . Its base was made of Gönninger tuff stones . The only building of this type in southwest Germany was architecturally based on the large crystal palace of the first world exhibition in London (1851). After the new botanical garden was opened near the Botanical Institute on Morgenstelle in 1970, the previous one was transformed into a city park. Despite numerous civil protests, the palm house fell victim to urban planning ignorance - it was removed.

The botanical garden in Tübingen with a view of the orangery (lithograph by Adam Gatternicht , approx. 1855)

The Ammer Canal flowed through the Botanical Garden and left the old town near the Lustnauer Tor and continued to reach the Ammer again under Grabenstrasse (today Am Stadtgraben ) and the "Museum" along today's Wilhelmstrasse. The mouth of the canal into the Ammer is located between the bridge on Wilhelmstrasse and the pedestrian bridge next to it. Since the canal has been overtaken, it is no longer visible to visitors. A pedestrian and bicycle path has been laid out on most of the canal, allowing pedestrians to take a short shortcut between the university district and the old town.

Holderlindenkmal

When the Botanical Garden was built, the church cemetery was on the other (northern) side of the Ammer in the western part - the former city cemetery. The cemetery was overcrowded and after the new city ​​cemetery was opened in 1829 it was abandoned over time. It became a green area that today forms a unit with the Old Botanical Garden. Uninitiated visitors do not notice that they were originally different systems.

inventory

In the place of the palm house there is a slight elevation, which is bordered by the small avenue of plane trees. The Hölderlin monument, a marble sculpture by Emmerich Andresen , has stood in the northeastern part of the garden since 1881 . The portrait shows the poet Friedrich Hölderlin in the Hellenic optimum . The inscription on the base consists of a text by the Austrian writer Robert Hamerling . The statue originally held a laurel wreath in its right hand, which was forcibly removed.

There is a playground in the western part . In the southeast corner of the park is the "Museum" built in 1822, which houses a cinema and a restaurant next to the seat of the museum society .

Hermann Vöchting (seated right) with other employees of the Botanical Garden, 1896.

Employee

Among the employees should be mentioned: "the university gardener, Inspector Hochstätter (sc. Wilhelm Christian Hochstetter ), a brother of the famous botanist and himself a competent botanist", who looked after the garden in the second half of the 19th century, Hermann Vöchting , who as head of the Botanical Institute was also head of the Botanical Garden from 1887, Ernst Lehmann , the boss in the 1930s and the long-time nursing worker Christian Schmid, who was employed on March 30, 1886 and with a short break until 1930 almost 43 Years worked. He was not only appreciated by the staff, but also known to many visitors as an always friendly and hardworking man whom they called “Schwägerle”. In 1927 he was honored not only by the management and the Württemberg government, but also by the Reich President Paul von Hindenburg .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Institutions of the city of Tübingen
  2. ↑ a b c ... and say hello to the world! ... , p. 98
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Hesse: Views from Swabia. Art, country and people in photos by the first Tübingen photographers and the photographer Paul Sinner (1838–1925) , Metz brothers  : Tübingen 1989, ISBN 3-921580-79-X , p. 35
  4. ↑ Playground in the Botanical Garden
  5. ^ Memoirs of Victor Kommerell
  6. ↑ An old Tübingen man. Christian Schmid 75 years old . In: “Tübinger Chronik” January 8, 1935, p. 7/8

literature

Web links

Commons : Alter Botanischer Garten (Tübingen)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 31 '24.6 "  N , 9 ° 3' 27.2"  E