Belvoir Park Society

Belvoir Park (2011)

The Belvoir Park Society was founded in 1891 in order to Belvoirpark to protect against the sale and it instead made available to the public. It dissolved in 1901 when it handed over the park to the city of Zurich .

history

The art patron Lydia Welti-Escher was the last owner of Villa Belvoir . After the death of the industrialist Alfred Escher , she inherited the villa and park. Even before her untimely death, she handed over the entire facility to the Gottfried Keller Foundation , which she had founded to promote art. The finance department was responsible for the administration. The property was part of the foundation's assets and was to be managed in such a way that it enabled the foundation's purpose, namely to acquire significant works of visual art from the proceeds of the assets.

The finance department therefore intended to subdivide Belvoirpark and the villa and sell it to maximize profit. When this became known in 1890, the most unusual rescue operation in the history of the Zurich gardens began.

Foundation and implementation

Arnold Bürkli founds an initiative committee with Karl Fierz-Landis and Eduard Guyer-Freuler and thus initiated the rescue of the Belvoir Park. ^[4] Their goal was to save the park from the threat of overbuilding. Bürkli had been in charge of the planned expansion of the quay since 1881, which would have been severely impaired by building over the Belvoir. The Quaibauten management immediately commissioned the then city architect Geiser, the architects Gull and Ernst and the landscape gardener Mertens to draw up a report that should show the best possible way to secure the Belvoir and make it usable for public purposes. The resulting draft, which was worked out within a very short time and still in autumn 1890, can be seen:

“We would consider it a downright disaster if the opportunity presented to save this magnificent and beautifully situated park that Zurich has for the general public were to pass unused and if the property had to fall victim to the usual building speculation. We do not need to develop the reasons for this any further, they are obvious and on everyone's lips. "

Since the city of Zurich was unable to raise the necessary money to buy the Belvoirpark, in April 1891 the society formulated an appeal to the population with 45 signatures to subscribe to share certificates to save the park. In an unprecedented action, thanks to the participation of 150 people, she had raised the planned share capital of CHF 500,000 within a few days. In May 1891 the contract to take over the Belvoir from the Gottfried Keller Foundation was concluded.

As part of the contract, the company had undertaken to fill in the quays along the Belvoir property and to build three parking lanes. But she was also given the right to sell individual parcels. With the sale of 14,000 m² the lake connection was definitely given up. A major destruction of the park could be prevented by building only one of the originally planned three park roads.

When the city of Zurich was able to take over the Belvoir in 1901, the city council thanked the Belvoir Park Society for preventing the “appalling loss of the treasure”.

literature

Belvoir Park Society: I.-X. Annual report, 1891–1900, and final report (creation of the Belvoir Park company). Editors: Eduard Guyer-Freuler, G. Diener, Ed. Usteri-Pestalozzi. Zurich 1892–1901: https://worldcat.org/oclc/610928528

Web links

Commons : Belvoirpark - collection of images, videos and audio files

Literature by and about Belvoir Park Society in the WorldCat bibliographic database

Individual evidence

↑ City Archives: From the city on the river to the city on the lake: 100 years of Zurich quays . City Archives, Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-908060-01-X .
^ ^A ^b ^c Judith Roher-Amberg: Garden Biographies: Telling Places. Ed .: SGGK Switzerland. Society for garden culture. Vdf, Hochschulverlag AG at ETH Zurich, Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-7281-3579-7 , p. 36-43 .
↑ ^a ^b Bellevoir Park Society: I.-X. Annual report, 1891–1900, and final report (creation of the Belvoir Park company) . Editors: Eduard Guyer-Freuler, G. Diener, Ed. Usteri-Pestalozzi. Zurich 1901, OCLC 610928528 , p. 10 .
↑ Zurich City Archives VII. 21. Belvoir-Park-Gesellschaft 1890–1901: Report on the Belvoir in Enge, Nov. 1890 (typed, folio, 23 pages, expert opinion addressed to the Quaidirektion, dated November 8, 1890, signed F. . Bluntschli, A. Geiser, G. Gull)

[1] City Archives: From the city on the river to the city on the lake: 100 years of Zurich quays . City Archives, Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-908060-01-X .

[:0-2] A ^b ^c Judith Roher-Amberg: Garden Biographies: Telling Places. Ed .: SGGK Switzerland. Society for garden culture. Vdf, Hochschulverlag AG at ETH Zurich, Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-7281-3579-7 , p. 36-43 .

[:1-3] Bellevoir Park Society: I.-X. Annual report, 1891–1900, and final report (creation of the Belvoir Park company) . Editors: Eduard Guyer-Freuler, G. Diener, Ed. Usteri-Pestalozzi. Zurich 1901, OCLC 610928528 , p. 10 .

[4] Zurich City Archives VII. 21. Belvoir-Park-Gesellschaft 1890–1901: Report on the Belvoir in Enge, Nov. 1890 (typed, folio, 23 pages, expert opinion addressed to the Quaidirektion, dated November 8, 1890, signed F. . Bluntschli, A. Geiser, G. Gull)