Bürgerpark and Stadtwald

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Site plan of the public park and the city forest

The Bürgerpark and the Stadtwald are the most famous parks in Bremen . With a total of more than 200  hectares , it is - after the park to the left of the Weser - the second largest green space in the Hanseatic city.

The Bürgerpark was created in the second half of the 19th century not far from the main train station as a classic public garden with lakes, coffee houses and lawns within the wooded areas. In the period after the turn of the century , the 65 hectare urban forest was created north of it. Together they offer visitors numerous opportunities to spend their free time with attractions as varied as animal enclosures, boat rentals, a Finnish runway , nature trails as well as mini golf and boules courts .

Both in the city forest and in the Bürgerpark there are numerous sculptures and monuments, some of which are more than 130 years old, as well as several listed buildings in coordinated natural ensembles. To this day, entertainment has been carried out without regular funding from public coffers by the Bürgerparkverein , which is supported solely by contributions and donations. One of his most important sources of income is the “Citizens Park Tombola ” , which has been held annually from the beginning of February to May since 1953 .

location

The Bürgerpark and the Stadtwald are located about one kilometer northeast of Bremen's old town and extend as an irregular square in the same direction. They have their area in the districts of Bürgerpark and Neu-Schwachhausen in the Schwachhausen district . Beginning in the south on Hollerallee directly opposite the Stadthalle (now Bremen Arena ), the green corridor is bordered in the west along its entire length by the peat canal and Findorffallee and in the east completely by Parkallee . The Wanne-Eickel-Hamburg railway acts as the border between the Bürgerpark and the city forest . The connection between the two areas is via two small pedestrian underpasses on the outside of the facility. The northern boundary is the weather route. Above this, however, the 28.2 hectare Stadtwaldsee (Unisee) and the 11.4 hectare nature reserve " Am Stadtwaldsee (Uni-Wildnis) " extend, through which the parks are connected to the blockland and thus extend like a green tongue the spacious marsh meadows into the city.

Unlike many other large urban parks, such as New York's Central Park or Berlin's Tiergarten , the Bürgerpark and Stadtwald are not cut up by roads. The only large, uniform passage from one side to the other is a wide path that begins at the police station in the east, passes Lake Emma to the north and exits on the west side. It represents the connection piece in the cross-district street system Waller Ring, Osterfeuerberger Ring, Utbremer Ring in the west and Schwachhauser Ring , Kirchbachstraße in the east.

The Bürgerpark can be reached with the tram lines 6 and 8 and the bus lines 22, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28 of the Bremer Straßenbahn AG . The surrounding stops are Am Stern, Bürgerpark, Findorffallee, Weidedamm, Weidedamm III, Parkallee, Busestraße / Bürgerpark and Emmastraße / Bürgerpark.

history

Bürgerpark

Planning

The Bürgerweide looking south towards the city in 1822

The rural cultivation of the Bremer Bürgerweide - originally 450 hectares of grassland north of the city, but reduced in size in the course of urbanization - steadily decreased in the 1860s and was completely discontinued in 1864. Another possible use had to be considered. From July 16 to 24, 1865, several thousand riflemen carried out the Second German Federal Shooting in the pasture . The participants suffered from the strong sunlight and the heat on the bare area, and the idea of ​​a shooting range under trees arose. The city leaders planned further events on the Bürgerweide in order to strengthen “Bremen's reputation in the German Empire”, but the expanding city also needed recreational areas and green spaces, which at that time were only available in the ramparts .

The main idea behind the reforestation of the area was probably the businessman and businessman Johann Hermann Holler . A first meeting of interested citizens took place on September 25th of the same year under the direction of the businessman Franz Ernst Schütte in the Bremen Ratskeller . It soon became apparent that the Senate would not provide any funds for such a project, which is why a citizens' initiative was founded. It was constituted on November 16 as the committee for the foresting of the Bürgerweide , initially with 60 members.

Soon afterwards, the committee commissioned Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Nagel to draw up a general plan. This envisaged playgrounds, a concert garden, lakes, meadows, a riding arena and other typical design elements of a public park . However, Nagel himself rejected his proposal and finally withdrew it. As a result, the project stalled a little, but the committee started negotiations with three garden architects. In the end it was decided in favor of Wilhelm Benque's plans . After this agreement, which promised rapid progress of the work, there was a large number of visitors, and the association soon had around 800 members. Benque got a job as an employee of the committee and future park director. A complete design plan was drawn up and a lot of money was collected in the form of donations before the committee's board of directors sent a request to the Senate with the intention of redirecting a section of the civic pasture and creating an “urban wood”. The request was granted, and the Senate and the citizenship overwritten planners an area of 76 hectares.

Emergence

Bremen in 1910. The Bürgerpark is clearly visible. The urban forest, which was already completed and attached that year, has not yet been drawn.

The groundbreaking ceremony took place on June 28, 1866, and almost 170 workers carried out the first garden architecture measure with the excavation of what is now Lake Emma. Although Benque revised his plans again at the turn of the year 1866/1867 (among other things, on the advice of the gardening director Johann Heinrich Gustav Meyer, he moved the large water basin - the later Hollersee - further south), but in the spring of 1867 the first trees were planted. A few months later the first coffee house with a bandstand and grotto was built. In August, work began on the design of the main facility in the south, including the Hollersee, which was completed three years later. At almost the same time, however, Benque withdrew from the project at the end of 1870. Other sources speak of a dismissal.

In 1872, the community park association , which still exists today, emerged from the committee for foresting the Bürgerweide , and those responsible in the municipal committees approved 60 more hectares as an extension of the area to the north ("Bürgerwald"). The large parking garage was built in 1873. In that year, the park presented itself for the first time from the beginning in the south to the street of the Schwachhauser Ring, i.e. over a length of almost one kilometer, as a homogeneous design unit. In 1874 the shooting range, which had originally given the impetus to redesign the Bürgerweide, was handed over, and from June 13 to 21 of the same year the international agricultural exhibition took place in the new park. In 1877, the businessman Franz Ernst Schütte was appointed chairman of the association and as such drove the expansion and progress of the design - not least through massive financial donations from his assets acquired through oil imports. Benque also resumed his post as park director in 1877 and saw the dairy farm complete three years later . In 1884 he finally resigned after controversial discussions about the further development of the park. His successor was Carl Ohrt . The construction work was finished in 1886 and the public park was finally designed.

Another story

The observation tower in the Bürgerpark, built in 1889, destroyed in World War II and demolished in 1962

An event of supraregional importance was the Northwest German Trade and Industry Exhibition , which was held from May 31 to October 15, 1890 on an area of ​​37.5 hectares in the southern area of ​​the park. For this purpose, the parking garage was demolished and a new building was built as the main building for the exhibition. However, this burned down in a large fire in 1907, which is why a third parking garage in the style of a princely country house was inaugurated six years later.

In Bremen at the time of National Socialism , three air raid bunkers were built on the east side of the Bürgerpark during the Second World War and are still preserved. The one opposite the confluence of Emmastrasse and Parkallee initially served the 8th Flak Division and later in 1945 the combat commander as a command bunker. The other two are in the section between Bulthauptstrasse and Benquestrasse. In the course of the air raids, the green spaces suffered massive devastation - for example, the multi-storey car park and the high observation tower in the Bürgerpark, donated by Franz Ernst Schütte, were destroyed. The former was rebuilt in 1956 as a park hotel .

In 1990 the Bürgerpark and Stadtwald were granted the protection status of a garden monument . In the same year, a scientific advisory board was introduced to assist the park administration in matters relating to the conservation and maintenance of the parks.

City forest

At a meeting on July 6, 1906, the committee and the board of directors of the Bürgerparkverein decided to submit a request to the Senate with the request that the association be given the trapezoidal area north of the railway line to the Wetterungsweg - the so-called Bürgerweidekämpe - for the construction of a city forest transfer ownership. The garden architecture design planning was carried out by the park director at the time, Carl Ohrt, and the businessman and chairman of the community park association Franz Schütte promised to provide 100,000  gold marks from his private assets to cover the costs. In July, the association members approved the request at an extraordinary general assembly, which was then sent immediately. On September 14, the Senate announced its approval:

"[...] The Senate believes that despite the not inconsiderable loss of lease in view of the indisputable advantage that the entire Bremen population will accrue from the creation of a city forest, the application of the Bürgerparkverein should not be withheld. He warmly welcomes the action of the Bürgerparkverein in the interest of Bremen, he is of the opinion that the offer of the friend of the association, which made his action possible, deserves the warmest thanks, and asks the citizens to unite with the resolution that the Bürgerparkverein the desired area is transferred as soon as possible under the same conditions as those specified for the Bürgerpark. "

In October of the same year, two locomotives and a steam plow with an associated water tank car, which had been borrowed from the Oldenburg forest administration , were used in the course of the first work . The silty clay soil over fen with locally strong reason wetness had initially up to 70 centimeters are plowed deep. Since the high groundwater level prevented the formation of a wide network of roots, the trees were placed extremely close together so that they could support each other. A total of 525,000 deciduous and coniferous tree saplings, 75,000 coppice saplings and 1,940 avenue trees were planted on the area of ​​265 acres . Alleys were created with a total length of 5,270 meters, and the excavation of the Kleiner Stadtwaldsee enabled a seven-meter-high hill to be built on its banks. On the east and west sides, coniferous trees were laid out and the forest opened up to four small, scattered clearings with lawns. The footpaths were designed in the shape of grass, so that they had a carpet-like appearance and required much lower maintenance costs. The most notable feature, however, was two large avenues. The north-south axis was dead straight for a length of approximately 600 meters, and the slightly curved west-east transversal was 20 meters wide and had two rows of trees on each side. The forest hut was built at the intersection of the two routes in the middle of the city forest. In May 1908, after less than two years of construction, the association's board announced the completion of the redesign at a general assembly. In the end, the costs had more than doubled, and Schütte paid 250,000 gold marks.

After the First World War, the city forest looked like a neglected wood without care, which is why external experts advised park director Hugo Riggers to have all the trees cut down, as it was impossible to restore order there. Riggers, however, decided against this radical measure; Instead, he raised the paths, thinned out the trees and helped the city forest to gain new popularity. In 1962 and 1972, hurricanes caused severe devastation. The storms had good opportunities to attack the thin, weak trunks due to the poor soil conditions and the sparse crowns of the trees. In 1972 alone, 1,730 trees fell - primarily on the east side of the city forest in a coniferous wood plantation - and thus more than twice as many as in the entire Bürgerpark.

At the beginning of April 1971, the Kleine Stadtwaldsee threatened to dry up when the water level fell rapidly. On April 2nd there was a large-scale action by nature lovers, members of the Bürgerparkverein and animal rights activists, who used inflatables and nets to save pike and other fish species. The cause of the drought lay in the construction of the new university . For this purpose, the former marshland meadows were washed up with sand, for which large amounts of water were required. There was a rapid lowering of the water table in this area. With the help of a quickly laid pipeline and a pump, the lake in the city forest could be refilled. While the Bürgerpark still hardly deviates from Benque's plans, the face of the urban forest has changed a lot over the years. For example, the initially designed avenues have given way to meadow views and the western softwood grove to a clearing. The forest hut no longer exists either.

Appearance

A small section of the Hollersee with the fountain

The Bürgerpark and Stadtwald have a combined area of ​​202.5 hectares . Of these, 136 are in the Bürgerpark and 66.5 in the latter. Taken together, they are among the largest inner-city parks in Germany after the English Garden in Munich , the Great Tiergarten in Berlin and the Altonaer Volkspark in Hamburg . The green corridor has a total length of up to 2.56 kilometers, the width varies between 0.6 and 1.17 kilometers. 142 hectares (a good 70 percent of the total area) are tree-covered, 30 hectares (15 percent) lawns and other lawns and 15 hectares (7.5 percent) of water. The park is dominated by five large lakes. In the northeast corner of the city forest is the 2,500 square meter, three-part small city forest lake. In the southern area of ​​the Bürgerpark, the Swan Lake is located in the southeast corner and the artificially enclosed Hollersee in front of the Parkhotel is in the center. This is equipped with a high fountain in the summer months . In a northerly direction in the western park area follows the Emma lake, on the banks of which there is a well-known coffee house and where you can rent rowing boats. With these it is possible to drive on the extensive central watercourse of the Bürgerpark, which flows in a ring through the entire park section between the railway line and the crossing footpath. The Meiereisee next to the Meierei Restaurant is included in this water circuit. From here, Bremen's longest line of sight (2.9 kilometers) extends over the pasture area to the south, the Great Park Meadow and the Park Hotel to the Bremen Cathedral . While the watercourses in the Bürgerpark run irregularly, in the city forest they flow comparatively parallel in a checkerboard pattern. The city ​​forest moat stretches along the entire eastern side of the city forest and is its largest stream. Numerous bridges, some of which are elaborately decorated and named after their donors (Alfred Hoffmann Bridge, Aselmeyer Bridge, Carl Schütte Bridge, Hachez Bridge, Hoffmann Bridge, Marie Bergmann Bridge, Melchers Bridge from 1881) lead across the water in both parks / 82, Schüttebrücke, Wiegandbrücke , Fritz-Hollweg-Brücke) or remind of famous Bremen personalities by name (Lambert-Leisewitz-Brücke).

View in southern direction of the Great Park Meadow and the Park Hotel

The city forest and the public park are fully developed and have a dense network of paths. The total length of the footpaths is 31.5 kilometers, the cycle paths are 14 kilometers and the roadways 7.3 kilometers. In addition, since November 19, 1977, in the southern section of the city forest, just above the railway line, there has been a 1,667 meter long, illuminated in the dark Finnish railway as a circular route. This was last revised in 2004 in cooperation with the Bremen Institute for Applied Prevention and Performance Diagnostics. With these measures, the track was widened to 1.5 meters and increased by 30 centimeters for better water drainage. Also in the city park, the Bürgerparkverein created an educational nature and adventure trail in 2000 on the initiative of the Bremen State Hunters' Association . In addition to a mini golf course on Lake Emma and a boules alley, there are five playgrounds within the park boundaries - four in the Bürgerpark and one in the city forest, some of which are designed as large adventure playgrounds . In addition, a toboggan hill rises in a clearing in the western third of the city forest .

The Melchersbrücke

A special feature of the green area are the different horticultural landscapes within the park structure. The best known is the oak grove in the middle-eastern area of ​​the Bürgerpark. It goes back to an initiative of the park director Carl Ohrt, who, in consultation with Benque, had a unique collection of 105 different oak species planted there in 1884 . When composing and grouping, attention was paid not only to the shape of the leaves, but also to the geographical distribution and the autumn color in order to create a harmonious image. Today there are still around 20 species of oak to be found in the oak grove. Further south, on the south bank of the swan pond, the spruce grove is a pinetum in which Ohrt - again following a Benques concept - had many types of coniferous wood planted. This place is one of only three spots in both parks where mostly conifers grow; otherwise the most varied of deciduous trees dominate in groups determined by Benque according to the main tree species. Miesegaeshain is a small grouping of oaks on the large park meadow donated by August Friedrich Miesegaes. A decorated zinc pavilion had previously been built on the same site in 1880, which was probably demolished in the course of the 1942 “metal donation”. Benque planned the so-called beech view from the swan pond to the north on the east side of the Schweizerhaushof with the thought of the typical “Thuringian landscapes” as a representation of a “lush meadow valley”. The lawns in this area are surrounded by mighty beeches.

Both parks were designed in the style of the popular gardens typical of expanding cities at the time , which is why Wilhelm Benque and his employees were careful to harmonize different garden architecture directions and styles and to create a harmonious park. For example, at the dairy or in the area of ​​the Parkhotel and the Hollersee there are strictly geometric and symmetrical shapes with straight flower borders and curved paths, while in other places winding paths lead through apparently wild nature. The partially hidden ditches, lakes and watercourses serve to irrigate and drain the park and are intended to give visitors the opportunity to gain new, unusual impressions and insights into the green area from the waterfront.

Monuments

Young man and goddess of fate in the courtyard of the dairy

A wide variety of sculptures, statues, memorials, busts and monuments can be found scattered across the park. They are almost exclusively in the Bürgerpark.

Some of the more unusual gems include:

  • The donor sculpture, a bronze sculpture with floral elements, which the Bürgerparkverein put up as a token of thanks for all donors and supporters.
  • The stone gorilla bust standing in a pavilion at the animal enclosure.

Dausch sculptures: the sculptor Constantin Dausch designed three portraits . In 1875, following an order from the Bremen merchant H. Lamotte, he created Siegfried fighting the dragon out of Carrara marble on a round stone base in the Italian capital of Rome . In Bremen, in the course of the Northwest German Trade and Industry Exhibition in 1890, the plant was converted into a fountain and handed over to the Bürgerparkverein by Lamotte's wife. Today Siegfried the Dragon Slayer stands on the west side of the Park Hotel. Dausch created the marble Musica in 1877. Just like the townscape of youth and goddess of fate , which was created one year later, it first found its place in the park of Schloss Mühlenthal St. Magnus , before being moved in front of the dairy villa in 1933. The two-figure work from 1878 has also been only 100 meters away in the dairy garden since 1933.

The Hollersee is flanked by several statues, each of which stands at the corners of its shore.

  • Music and dance: made of marble as idealized personifications by Diedrich Kropp from 1885.
  • The sculpture ensemble Vier Jahreszeiten (1991) with the four sculptures spring , summer , autumn and winter at Hollersee comes from Bernd Altenstein and was set up on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the Bürgerpark.

Works by Theodor Georgii: From the legacy Eduart Schrodts was in the years 1909 and 1910 the construction of the sculptures African waterbuck and red deer on the east side of the former parking garage and modern Parkhotel be realized. Both figures have a base made of shell limestone and are made of bronze according to designs by Theodor Georgii .

Loans from the Kunstverein: In 1972, the non-profit art association in Bremen , which is the sponsor of the Kunsthalle , granted the Bürgerparkverein two permanent loans. So the Amphytrite by Kurt Edzard and the Poseidon by Ernesto de Fiori came to the park, both of which were originally built in 1929 for a passenger steamer of the North German Lloyd . Both bronze statues are now in the garden of the coffee house on Lake Emma.

Hermann-Löns-Stein: In the early 1930s, hunters, nature lovers and lovers of the writings of the local poet Hermann Löns, who died in World War I , organized a fundraising campaign for a memorial. In 1933, a boulder found near Nienburg was made into a simple memorial stone with the inscription "Löns". This Hermann-Löns-Stein was given to the Bürgerparkverein by the Bremer Jägervereinigung e. V. given.

The Benquestein

Schütte bust: In memory of the chairman of the Bürgerparkverein, who died in 1911 and the greatest patron of the parks, Franz Ernst Schütte , who had made exceptional contributions to the Bürgerpark and the city forest, a committee collected donations for a memorial after his death. In 1913, the then mayor and successor of Schütte in the post of club president Carl Georg Barkhausen was able to unveil the marble bust of Schütte created by Adolf von Hildebrand . The inscription reads “Franz Schütte dedicated to the highly deserved fellow citizen of his friends MDCCCCXIII”. Forty years after its creation, the bust was replaced by a copy in 1953 for safety reasons. The original was given a place in the art gallery and since 1989 in the dairy.

Benquedenkmal: The head landscape gardener , garden architect and long-time park director Wilhelm Benque is also remembered. He had spoken out against any honor during his lifetime, so it was only 42 years after his death that the architect Eduard Gildemeister proposed the creation of a monument in 1937. The design was carried out by the native Bremen sculptor and director of the Nordic Art Academy in Bremen, Ernst Gorsemann . The Benquestein in the oak grove, a simple granite block from the Fichtelgebirge , is surrounded by a semicircular low bench made of the same material and, in addition to the inscription "Wilhelm", bears two reliefs of a digging and a planting worker, symbolic of the activities in the park.

Fawn: Gorsemann also made the clay sculpture of a fawn , which he made in 1954 as a cast of a figure of the deer well in the Bremen ramparts and which is now located at the Wildhaus in the Bürgerpark.

Bienenroland: The only thing in the city ​​forest is the beehive made of oak. It was created by the artist Birgit Jönsson and was installed in 2004 on the occasion of the 600th anniversary of the Bremen Roland . The statue houses a beehive and hence gets its name.

Benches

The Amelie Ziermann Bank

As special design elements in the Bürgerpark and in the city forest, the numerous artistically worked out benches that exist next to the normal seating are to be emphasized. Almost all of them are due to private donations and not infrequently bear the name of the founder or the person they are supposed to remember. Several of these works come from the workshop of the art locksmith Justus Leidenberg :

  • In 1893 he created the Amelie-Ziermann-Bank , which the merchant August Ziermann had donated in memory of his deceased daughter. The semicircular cast iron seat served as a model for several other benches in the park.
  • The Marie-Sagehorn-Bank , which Leidenberg built in 1894, is almost identical in shape to the previous one . Shortly after they were set up, the decision was made to split them up and set them up in several different locations. As a reunited whole, it stands by the watercourse near the old shooting house.
  • The three-part Kulenkamp benches were built in 1897. You are in the so-called arcade on the bank of the south-eastern bend of the central watercourse on the east side of the Bürgerpark. This was created in 1886 as a decoration by shaping pruned hornbeam plants on an iron pergola to form a canopy. This place is considered to be one of the most idyllic places in the entire park.
  • The wrought-iron J. Meyer bench is filigree and was built in 1898. It originally stood in a seating niche near the Schweizerhaus , now in the garden of the Waldbühne.
  • In 1900 the locksmith furnished the Remmersbank , named after its founder, with floral elements . The wrought-iron work again shows parallels to the previous ones and was initially located near the Emmabank before it was installed east of the Schweizerhaus.
  • At Fichtenhain in 1907 the two years earlier from a legacy of Dr. Long commissioned Früßmersbank made of cast iron. Nowadays it stands near the Hachez Bridge.

In addition to these six benches, there are others that were not made by Leidenberg.

  • The best known of them is the relatively small wrought iron Heine bench in Art Nouveau style . It stands in the Eichenhain as a souvenir of Heinrich Heine and goes back to ideas of the Bremen Literary Association from 1902 to erect a memorial for the famous writer. These plans were implemented in 1904 according to the designs by Hans Lassen . The bench initially carried a large, centrally placed relief portrait medallion Heine (sculptor: Hugo Berwald ) and two flanking small text panels with verses made of bronze. After the end of the First World War , however, it was desecrated by anti-Semites who stole the large plaque. A repair was carried out in 1924 before the park director Hugo Riggers was forced to hide all three panels in the wake of the Nazi takeover in 1933 . The bank was bombed during the Allied air raids. In 1969 the panels were attached to a stone bench before the restoration of the Heine bench in its old form in 1989 could be celebrated. The Heine Bank was missing from the Bürgerpark in 2010 because it was part of the Bremen stand at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai.
  • The Emmabank on the west bank of the Emma lake, made of sandstone in 1868 according to a design by Heinrich Müller , looks more like a monument than a bank, as it consists of a large memorial stone and only two small flanking seats. The inscription commemorates the beginning of the construction work for the forestation of the Bürgerweide, the legendary Emma von Lesum and the Bremen Bishop Hartwig I. von Stade , who in 1159 confirmed the ownership of the Bürgerweide in a town document. Furthermore, the bank bears the motto of the Bürgerpark “For gentlemen and servants, man, woman and child. To benefit and joy for all time ”. A notch in the stone also indicates the double flooding of 1880/1881 , the most severe flooding the park has experienced to date. In 1966 the bank experienced a minor implementation.
The Hollerbank
  • The semicircular Hollerbank made of sandstone was created in 1869 based on designs by the architects Müller and Runge and is intended to commemorate Johann Hermann Holler , who died a year earlier and whose ideas had a decisive influence on the creation of the Bürgerpark. The bench is by the Marcus Fountain.
  • The so-called Roman bench made of sandstone was designed in 1898 by the director of the Bremen trade museum August Töpfer. It forms a semicircle and is stylistically based on the formal language of antiquity. The initials MS indicate the founder Meta Schütte.
  • The stone Bulthauptbank from 1909 stands near the Wiegand Bridge. Its bronze portrait plaque commemorates the poet and writer Heinrich Bulthaupt , who allegedly was often to be found there.
  • The massive stone Primavesibank , also known as "Idas- und Mariannenruhe", was designed by the building officer Hugo Weber in 1912. This seating was destroyed in the Second World War and in 1969 it was rebuilt
  • The design of the Hollerbank is very similar to the Wolrabbank , which is also known as the “Ruheleben”. It is a donation from Elise Wolrab in 1914 in memory of her deceased brother Carl. The bench was initially flanked by two stone figures in the form of a child and an animal sculpture, but these were later removed due to frequent damage.
  • As Anna's rest is defined as a small bank with stone cheeks and wooden seat which was donated in 1915 by two brothers in memory of a deceased sister.

  • Hornbeam arbor

  • Aerial view

  • Animal enclosure in the Bürgerpark

  • panorama

  • Lambert-Leisewitz Bridge

Animal enclosure

One of the main attractions of the park is the zoo surrounded by watercourses and large lawns in the middle section of the public park. It has existed in various forms since 1869. At that time, a basin for otters was created , which existed until 1886. Small zoological presentations were common in many public parks during the 19th century for the entertainment of visitors. The otters as nocturnal creatures were very shy, which is why an enclosure with a stable for reindeer and deer was built in 1871, which was given a wooden structure a year later. In this way, native, diurnal animals could be kept that endured the sometimes adverse weather. In 1874, another game stable was built in what was then the beech grove, which was moved to the western part of the Bürgerpark in 1884.

In 1903 this was replaced by a new building with a square and a round tower, which had a birch frame structure that was visible from the outside and formed the center of a large enclosure with many species of animals. In the meantime attempts were made to keep exotic animals in order to increase the attractiveness, but soon discovered that the cost was too high. Nevertheless, kangaroos lived in the Bürgerpark for decades , and they multiplied in large numbers. After the Second World War , the dromedary “Bobby” became a crowd favorite and in 1954 a new building was built, which today also houses the game keeper's apartment. Fallow deer and sika deer have lived in the enclosures since 1966 . Furthermore, mostly native species are kept nowadays; In addition to gray mountain goats , domestic sheep and ducks, Bentheimer country pigs , wild boars , geese, house donkeys , alpacas , mouflons, peacocks and guinea pigs are also settled there.

buildings

building

In addition to the extensive green areas, forests, meadows and streams of the Bürgerpark and the city forest, there are also numerous buildings within the park. Some of these are used for recreation or catering for visitors, or they house the administrative offices. In addition, there are five shelters in which hikers and cyclists can shelter in the event of storms. The two largest buildings are in the immediate vicinity in the southern area of ​​the Bürgerpark. One is the Parkhotel am Hollersee and the other is the Schweizerhaus. The latter was created in 1871 through a donation from the money and exchange broker Heinrich Christian Dieckmann according to plans by Carl Scheinpflug in the “Swiss house style” and initially served as a caretaker's house and office of the Bürgerparkverein. It housed a small apartment, an office and a conference room for the board of the association. In 1881 there was an extension and five years later a kitchen was added. However, care was taken to keep the original style. It still serves as the home of the park director today and is now part of a seven-part building ensemble on a larger paved courtyard, which is, however, summarized and added together under the name Schweizerhaus.

The master mason F. Holländer had the old shooting house built in 1861 on the former military shooting range north of the Ringstrasse. During the park expansion in 1874, the property fell to the Bürgerparkverein, who converted it into a caretaker's house. Today the house on the eastern edge of the Bürgerpark serves as an official residence. Another guard house was built in 1901 with a donation from Elise Köncke amounting to 10,000  gold marks near the southwest entrance to the park. This colorful house is known as the Elisenstiftung and has an ornate wooden decoration in the Nordic style. Two pavilions in the park are also the result of generous donors. The Norwegian-Swedish consul Hermann S. Gerdes donated one of these constructions on May 31, 1903 on the occasion of his 80th birthday. The Gerdes pavilion was designed by architects Friedrich Wellermann and Paul Frölich as a wooden construction with a slate roof on the beech view not far from the dairy. In 1963, Fritz Brandt built the Dyckhoff pavilion at a road dividing between Emmasee and Marcusbrunnen, which the Bremen clothing store H. Dyckhoff had donated as a “children's shelter” for its 75th company anniversary two years earlier. The rotunda was renovated in 1986 and given a gold-plated tip. In the north-western corner of the Bürgerpark, between the main watercourse and the railway line, there is the Wätjenshaus, a brick- built house in a country house style with a decorated roof, white plastered wall sections and rain protection accessible from the path. At this point, Benque had initially planned a shelter for horses and riders. After a donation from the widow of the Bremen merchant and shipowner Diedrich Heinrich Wätjen in 1893, construction began, but a caretaker's house was built in this area.

Lookout tower on the hill at the Kleiner Stadtwaldsee

Two important buildings in the city forest are the overseer's house on the eastern edge and the observation tower on the Kleiner Stadtwaldsee. The former goes back to a donation from Franz Ernst Schuette and was also designed by Wellermann and Frölich as a two-story, octagonal central building with two side wings, which faces the Parkallee with a discreet façade with a column-supported pent roof. The house was ready for occupancy in 1908 and was completely renovated from 1996 to 1997. Gabriel von Seidl provided the designs for the lookout tower on the hill by the Kleiner Stadtwaldsee and had a tower-like pavilion built with a colonnade, behind whose oak door a staircase led to the upper platform. From autumn 1909 the building served as a lookout point and rain shelter, but was immediately closed again until the summer of 1910, as the view of the newly designed park was considered too unattractive. Soon after its completion, for reasons not known in detail, the name "Jewish temple" became popular. The tower was repeatedly exposed to vandalism from the start , which is why the glass windows were replaced by wire windows as early as 1917. In the 1920s, cracks and damage to the roof had to be repaired and in 1956/1957 the slowly decaying roof was repaired again. As the wanton destruction continued, the entrance to the tower was bricked up in 1972. A full restoration took place six years later, but it remained inaccessible. In 1984 the observation tower was placed under a preservation order and with financial support from the Rotary Club Bremen-Weser it was renovated again in 2004. The entrance door and the glass windows have been re-installed true to the original, but the tower is still only accessible with guided tours. Despite its exposed location, the tower no longer offers a clear view due to the tall surrounding trees.

Waldbühne

The Waldbühne

The Waldbühne is the last remaining building from the trade and industrial exhibition of 1890 . The timber structure near the parking garage was built by the carpenter JH Meyer, the carpenter Fr. Flathmann and the roofer J. Mähl according to plans by the architect Carl Bollmann . It served the Bremen cigar company Engelhardt & Biermann as an exhibition pavilion and, according to the original plans, was to be demolished like the other showrooms after the end of the exhibition. However, since no rain shelter and no guard apartment had been built in the north-eastern corner of the Bürgerpark at that time, the tobacco company decided to donate the pavilion and also assumed the costs of moving it to its current location. The restoration, which opened next to the supervisor's apartment in the small building on July 8, 1891, was called Waldschlösschen , which was soon popularly applied to the house itself. The Waldbühne survived both world wars without significant damage and was renovated by a brewery in 1966, before the Bürgerparkverein had it expanded a little in 1975 to attract tenants.

In 1991, another extensive renovation took place with the help of the State Office for Monument Preservation . The richly decorated building was covered with slate and is now in its original state. There are numerous nostalgic decorative elements in the interior. The Waldbühne has been a popular meeting place in the parks since the mid-1970s. It houses an inn with a large garden and a stage where numerous concerts with a focus on jazz are given all year round . In summer, a so-called jazz morning takes place on an outdoor stage on Sunday mornings.

Dairy farm

The dairy

The dairy is almost in the center of the green space on the south bank of the lake named after it. Today it is a popular place for excursions and events. The almost 400-meter-long driveway from Parkallee is the only public route in the two parks on which vehicles are permitted.

In 1879 a small dairy with twelve dairy cows was built on the site, who grazed in the surrounding meadows. Just two years later, with a donation from Schütte and according to plans by Heinrich Müller, today's building was built in the “Swiss style” with several verandas . The inner courtyard, bordered by a stable with 36 cows and a coach house, was converted into a garden with flower beds and the installation of a pigeon house. The dairy now also served as a restaurant and also sold the manufactured products, such as milk, butter, layered cheese, whipped cream and yogurt. In the basement , the building housed the kitchen, milk chambers and the dairy, while on the mezzanine floor the guest rooms, the large central hall and on each side a ladies' and a gentlemen's room were to be found. Servants' rooms and the tenant apartment were on the top floor.

To increase the attractiveness and to make the business more profitable, a boat rental with a water train was set up on Meiereisee in 1883 and a monkey cage in 1886. With the culinary offer, music performances and mineral fountain cures , the dairy soon developed into a well-known address. However, the stables had to be abandoned in 1900 after increased complaints from guests and for hygienic reasons. Initially, it was considered to relocate them, but the necessary financial resources were lacking for this measure, so that dairy farming ended. Five years later, the pigeon house in the garden was demolished and the sculptor Max Dennert created the Geschwister marble group financed by Franz Ernst Schütte, or the first step . This did not survive the Second World War. After the end of the war, the dairy farm was confiscated by US soldiers and given to various youth groups for recreational purposes, which led to the partial destruction of the interior within six years. In 1951 the Americans released the building from their possession and it was renovated. In 1970 the interior was redesigned and the external facades were renewed between 1976 and 1980. In 1981 the management of the Parkhotel was taken over. In 2002 the facades were repaired, during which the coloring was restored according to the original plans. In 2014, the building was renovated and the interior was redesigned as the tenant changed. In addition, the original front staircase, which had been omitted when the veranda was widened earlier, has been restored with a smaller width.

In order to preserve the rural character that Wilhelm Benque initially intended for the dairy, cows still graze on the meadows south of the house in the summer months. Not far from the dairy on the other bank of the lake is the dairy villa, a building built in 1882 as a farm for livestock farming. The floor plan was deliberately designed to be broad in order to hide the courtyard behind it from the eyes of the park visitors. The facade was given a cover to match the dairy ; nowadays the villa is used as an apartment for the park staff.

The new Marie 2013 in front of the dairy villa

The boathouse for the replica of the historic excursion boat Marie from 1913, completed in 2013, is also located on Meiereisee . The boat, which is powered by an electric motor, travels around the waters of the Bürgerpark on weekends and public holidays from May to October. For this purpose, four berths were set up on the watercourse in 2012.

Emmasee coffee house

Heinrich Müller designed the coffee house on the north bank of the Emma lake in 1867 as a light, flat wooden structure called the "tent". Taking into account the great popularity of this house among the people of Bremen, the expansion of the access roads and ornamental plantings were approved, and the tenant was able to add a music pavilion in front a year later. In 1874 the coffee house was expanded. After 30,000 gold marks had been paid out to the Bürgerparkverein from the legacy of JH Gräving and the brewery director Lambert Leisewitz donated 50,000 gold marks on the occasion of his silver wedding anniversary, the decision was made to build a solid new building in the same location. This was completed in 1897, kept in the "Tyrolean style" and had a high decorative tower on the ceiling construction of the summer hall. In 1908 and 1909 the house received a new music pavilion, which bears the name of its founder, as a gift from the banker Wätjen.

The tower had to be demolished in 1918 because it had leaned so much during a storm that it was feared that it would collapse. The coffee house was destroyed by fire bombs in World War II and the wooden rubble was stolen from citizens in need, leaving only the foundation walls. Based on this situation, the board of the Bürgerparkverein dealt with a reconstruction of the café for the first time in 1951 - a building in the style of a specialist hall house was considered . However, it was not until 1960 that financial reserves were drawn on through the Bürgerpark raffle, so that the planning phase could begin. In 1964 the new coffee house on Emmasee was inaugurated in the style of the time according to plans by Carsten Schröck and Hans Budde as a single-storey flat roof building with large windows facing the water. Emma am See is now called the coffee house.

Fountain

The switched off Marcusbrunnen in April 2006
The Claus Addix Fountain

The most famous fountain in the parks is the Marcusbrunnen in the south of the Bürgerpark in the immediate vicinity of the Parkhotel. It was donated in 1883 by the then mayor, Victor Marcus . August Töpfer won a realization competition , whose creative figural ideas were implemented by Diedrich Samuel Kropp while F. Kallmeyer cast the metal jewelry. The inauguration of the fountain was celebrated in 1889. The work initially consisted of a stone base and a stone fountain bowl and had two other bronze bowls, tritons and water-spouting seahorses on the base. In the course of the “metal donation” in 1942, the metal elements were dismantled, but in 1959 the fountain could be put back into operation in an initially simplified form. In 1975 the sculptor Claus Homfeld added an upper bowl to the Marcus fountain and, instead of the original seahorses, four seashells, each made of bronze.

The Niemitzbrunnen is located between the Parkhotel and the park administration building. The merchant Johann Friedrich Niemitz donated it, and it was built in 1878 one year after his death based on a design by Heinrich Müller . The fountain has the shape of a small Pompeian temple and houses stone benches and a fountain column with a water basin under its flat triangular gable. Another fountain was made in 1908 by the sculptor J. Conrad Buchner as a result of a bequest from the inheritance of the businessman Claus Albert Addix. This sandstone Claus Addix fountain is located south of the Emma lake between a playground and the mini golf course and in earlier times had flower decorations on the edge of the pool. However, the water supply to the well has been defective for a long time.

Organization and financing

Tickets for the 2012 Bürgerpark raffle

To this day, the Bürgerpark and the city forest are maintained without state funding by the Bürgerparkverein, which has a good 2,600 members, making them the largest privately financed city park in Germany. The Bürgerpark raffle represents an important source of income. It has been held since 1953 under the patronage of the respective mayor over a period of three months in the squares of downtown Bremen. In November 2000, the Bürgerparkverein established the “ Countess Emma Foundation for the Preservation of the Bremer Bürgerpark” in order to secure the parks financially . After reaching a fixed basic amount, this should serve as a supplementary security. The foundation is administered by the Sparkasse Bremen .

The chairman of the Bürgerparkverein has been Joachim Linnemann from the real estate company Justus Grosse since 2004. Many trees, but also fountains and benches in the Bürgerpark and in the city forest are donations from Bremen residents and therefore often bear their names.

Depending on the season, the Bürgerparkverein employs 30 to 45 permanent employees in the administrative office as well as craftsmen and gardeners. The latter take care of the maintenance of the green area, repair damage and implement new ideas creatively. Eight to ten part-time workers are also employed as security and cleaning personnel, for hunting and muskrat catching. You can also do school and professional internships as well as a voluntary ecological year in the association.

The average annual budget of the public park and the city forest is between 2,000,000 and 2,500,000 euros. As a rule, one third of this amount is covered by bequests and inheritances. The remaining two thirds come from private donations, membership fees, large-scale fundraising campaigns, rental and lease income, foundation assets and funds from the toto and lottery pots . The net proceeds of the sold tickets for the Bürgerpark raffle contribute significantly to the financing - in 2012, 936,100 tickets for one euro each were sold. The Bürgerpark raffle is thus Germany's top-selling property lottery. The total proceeds amounted to approximately 46,000,000 until 2003, the net profit to approximately 19,200,000 euros .

Regular events

As the central and highly frequented city park of a big city, the Bürgerpark and Stadtwald are also the venue for numerous festivals, demonstrations and concerts. In 2008 there were 26 music events alone. The most popular of these is the “ Music and Light on Hollersee ” concert evening that takes place every year in mid-September . The Bremen Youth Symphony Orchestra of the Bremen Music School then plays on a stage on the south bank of the lake, while more than 30,000 spectators regularly sit on blankets or have a picnic on the lawns. The atmosphere is reminiscent of the Proms , especially when visitors light torches at an advanced hour and the Hollersee is bathed in a wide sea of ​​lights. The torches are sold on the access roads, with half of the proceeds going to the orchestra and the other half to the playgrounds in the parks. A fireworks display is traditionally Georg Friedrich Handel's Fireworks Music played and the conclusion is the common sung song The moon has risen .

In 1995 the Bürgerparkverein entered into a cooperation with the Bremer Shakespeare Company . Since then, it has been performing classics by William Shakespeare on an open-air stage at Melchersbrücke every year on five days in August under the title "Bremer Theatersommer - Shakespeare im Park" . Within a short time, these demonstrations in front of the silhouette of the Bürgerpark at dusk became very popular and are usually sold out weeks in advance. Several different associations have been celebrating since 1990 under the leadership of the Landesbetriebssportverband e. V. (LBSV) held the “Bremen Children's Day” at the Marcusbrunnen in August. The aim is for the adults to come to terms with the child. In addition to a varied program of games, there are also dance performances, shows, concerts and readings. The highlight is the awarding of the Children's Oscar, which is given to people or associations who have made a special contribution to the rights of children or who help or promote children in various ways.

Personalities

Chairperson (President) of the Bürgerparkverein

Park directors

  • 1865-1870: Wilhelm Benque
  • 1877-1884: Wilhelm Benque
  • 1884–1908: Carl FHA Ohrt (1852–1908)
  • 1909–1918: Theodor G. Karich (1853–1918)
  • 1919–1963: Hugo Riggers (1884–1968)
  • 1964–1989: Günter Reinsch (1923–?)
  • 1989–2012: Werner Damke
  • since 2012: Tim Großmann

literature

sorted by year of publication

  • Günter Reinsch: The Bürgerpark - an example of German city parks in Bremen . In: Die Gartenkunst 2 (1/1990), pp. 87–98.
  • Günter Reinsch: 125 years of public park maintenance in Bremen . Garden Art 3 (2/1991), pp. 225-234.
  • Bürgerparkverein Bremen (ed.), Die Wittheit zu Bremen (ed.): 125 years of Bremer Bürgerpark . Johann Heinrich Döll-Verlag , Bremen, 1991, ISBN 3-88808-135-1
  • Bürgerparkverein (ed.): The Bürgerpark. Walk through the park - experience culture. Observe nature - experience nature. Card sheet . Asco Sturm Druck, Bremen, 1994
  • Karolin Bubke: Ten Centuries of Bürgerweide Bremen . Aschenbeck & Holstein Verlag, Delmenhorst , 1999, ISBN 3-932292-17-0
  • Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . Edition Temmen , Bremen, 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X
  • Ulrike Graf, Bürgerparkverein (ed.): The city forest. Walk through the forest - experience culture . Asco Sturm Druck, Bremen, 2006

Web links

Commons : Bürgerpark, Bremen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schwarzwälder (2003), page 153
  2. ^ Graf, Bürgerparkverein (Ed.) (2006), pages 2 and 3
  3. ^ Graf, Bürgerparkverein (Ed.) (2006), page 3
  4. ^ Graf, Bürgerparkverein (Ed.) (2006), page 11
  5. ^ Graf, Bürgerparkverein (Ed.) (2006), page 12
  6. ↑ Bürgerparkverein (Ed.) (1994), cover page 1
  7. ↑ a b c Information brochure of the Bürgerparkverein from June 2006 on the occasion of the 140th anniversary of the groundbreaking
  8. ↑ Bubke (1999), page 70
  9. ↑ Bürgerparkverein Bremen (ed.), Die Wittheit zu Bremen (ed.) (1991), page 43
  10. ↑ From the Bremer Bürgerpark to Shanghai / Heinebank as an exhibit at the world exhibition. Senate press office Bremen, December 16, 2009, accessed on December 18, 2009 .
  11. ↑ Bremen history on a world tour. WFB Wirtschaftsförderung Bremen GmbH, archived from the original on April 13, 2010 ; Retrieved June 5, 2010 .
  12. ↑ Schwarzwälder (2003), page 48
  13. ^ The dairy ( Memento from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ http://www.buergerpark.de/historie/architektur/kaffeehaus - entry in buergerpark.de . Retrieved on August 20, 2009 (German)
  15. ↑ Press office of the Senate - handover of the net profit of the citizens' park tombola. In: senatspressestelle.bremen.de. February 6, 2013, accessed March 2, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Schwarzwälder (2003), page 154

Coordinates: 53 ° 5 ′ 25 ″  N , 8 ° 49 ′ 20 ″  E

This article was added to the list of excellent articles on September 9, 2009 in this version .