Comenius garden
The Comenius Garden is a publicly accessible garden in the Bohemian Village in Berlin-Neukölln . The sponsoring association is the Förderkreis Böhmisches Dorf in Berlin-Neukölln e. V., which is subsidized by the State of Berlin . The Primátor of Prague and the Governing Mayor of Berlin are the patrons of the garden. The garden was founded by Henning Vierck , who still manages it today.
location
The Comenius Garden takes up the property on Richardstraße 35 and is therefore located directly on the Bohemian Village (also called Bohemian Rixdorf ) and thus in the core of Rixdorf. The Karl-Marx-Strasse runs directly parallel to Richard road. The descendants of the Bohemian religious refugees live in the neighborhood and have been allowed to settle there since 1737. At the same time, the proportion of refugee families from today's conflict regions of the world in the resident population in the area is high.
Emergence
The "Richardsburg", a notorious tenement , had stood on the approximately 1.2 hectare property since 1905 . After its demolition in 1971, various usage concepts were considered. In the 1980s, planning began for a Comenius garden. In 1992, the then Czech and Slovak Federal Republic thanked the Czech Republic in the 18th century with a Comenius monument. Alexander Dubček , then President of Parliament, unveiled it on the still fallow land. Planning could then be accelerated. The garden architects Cornelia Müller and Jan Wehberg designed the garden with the scientific advice of Henning Vierck, today's managing director. The opening was on June 11, 1995.
In spring 2017, Vierck handed over the management of the garden to co-managing director Neele Illner.
layout
The garden is a historical reconstruction of the work of Johann Amos Comenius (1592–1670). This is reflected on two levels. On the one hand, a tour has been laid out that traces a person's life path; on the other hand, topics from various works and the scientific-historical environment of Comenius are taken up. Conversely, through the implementation of garden architecture, topics are presented that are intended to encourage visitors to deal with them further. The connection between Comenius and the garden is - apart from the monument - not visible, but only becomes apparent in an oral explanation (or in the literature based on it.) Signs were therefore dispensed with in order to preserve the character of a garden and one Avoid exhibition. The means of design come from the tradition of garden architecture. In addition to flower beds, meadows, an avenue and other plantings, a pond and a water basin were created, an arbor was built and sculptures were set up.
Life path
For the "life", where you can follow a tour, the presentation was in Pampaedia (Allerziehung) the Comenius determining. However, other didactic works were used. Here, a person's life is understood as a series of schools. The design goes beyond the property boundaries and includes parts of the neighborhood.
The path begins at the end of Richardplatz (i.e. not at the official entrance) at a walnut tree . This stands for the school of prenatal development . From the perspective of the school reformer, it is already true here that the external conditions must be set up in such a way that the individual is able to lead a good life.
A playground, which is linked to the mother's school, i.e. the pre-school education, leads through a gate onto the garden property, into the area of the common school . All children, regardless of their status or gender, should be taught together in their mother tongue. The children should go through an educational cycle that introduces them to all areas of the world. This school is divided into six classes: violets , rose grove , meadow carpeted , maze , Arzneigärtlein and soul paradise . Comenius himself intended these names (in Latin) for these classes. The plants mentioned and the information on the didactic tasks were ideal for the creation of the real garden. Further motifs were taken from the other works by Comenius, which concern the second design level. The soul paradise has the shape of a gazebo that invites reflection.
Through a gate you enter the Latin school , at the beginning of which is the Comenius monument. This school was designed for the children who were eligible for higher education. They should learn the European lingua franca and scientific language Latin and go through an educational cycle in this language again in which they deepen their knowledge. There were no class specifications for the design, but other works could be used to accompany the school lessons during this phase. Pictures on the property wall refer to the Orbis sensualium pictus . The stage in front of it on Schola ludus (school as a game) and Triertium Catholicum (general trinity).
Continuing in the direction of Richardstraße you come to the academy area, which stands for universities and research institutions.
The garden gate leads to Richardstraße and the Bohemian Village, which is the theme of the conception of the garden for the school of the profession . The existing establishment of senior clubs could with the old school in the Pampaedia be connected.
From the Bohemian village the route leads through Deutsch-Rixdorf via Richardplatz with the historic smithy and Kirchhofstrasse to the Böhmischer Gottesacker . This 18th century cemetery is still occupied today by the three parishes of the Rixdorf Bohemia ( Moravian Brethren , Reformed and Lutheran parishes). With regard to the "path of life" he represents the school of death or the heavenly academy . If you leave it on the other side, you are close to the walnut tree, the beginning of the tour.
Science history topics
Along the “path of life”, other topics are addressed with garden architecture means, in particular those of natural philosophy , epistemology , anthropology and social reform. Comenius had dealt with them partly since his studies, partly they resulted from his practice as a teacher and school reformer. The topics come from other didactic writings by Comenius or contemporary science. These topics can only be touched upon briefly in the context of this article.
With the idea of the school of prenatal development , a non-individualistic and non-biological concept of man is represented. Life does not begin with conception, but with the parents' intention to have a child.
The mother's school has the task of familiarizing the children with the world and the language through play. Comenius advocates the empirical principle that nothing is in the mind that was not in the senses before.
The violet bed is designed as an optical illusion . This points to the rationalistic doubt about sensory knowledge. In addition to the senses, Comenius accepted reason as the second source of knowledge.
The rose grove is reminiscent of the Rosicrucians . Comenius referred to her several times and was in correspondence with Johann Valentin Andreae . In the 17th century there were numerous attempts to form communities for scientific exchange and with the aim of improving society.
A pond has been created in the meadow of the meadow carpet, which stands for the “ocean of the world”. In his natural-philosophical and natural history textbook, Physics , Comenius also illustrated the cycle of water (evaporation, rain, seepage, spring, river, sea). In the garden, a small stream flows into the "ocean of the world". At the same time, this area stands for the first nature , recognizable by the fact that the trees are not grafted .
The subsequent maze then stands for second nature . The trees here are grafted. For Comenius, technology was not an opposition to nature, but rather its continuation. It has become “second nature” to us. The general opposition between man and nature is alien to this thinking.
On the lawn, where a hedge separates the areas of first and second nature , there is the mosaic basin made of granite stone. This thematizes the mosaic physics , which Comenius developed in physics and varied elsewhere. It is one of the attempts of this time to combine the cosmogonies of the Bible , natural philosophy and the emerging natural sciences. Comenius interprets the first chapter of the first book of Moses in terms of the Aristotelian tradition. But he expands the sentence “Let there be light!” To a third principle alongside matter and spirit . This creates a triadic worldview. The light (or the fire) is the tool with which the spirit can penetrate matter.
For knowledge, the Bible as revelation is the third source of knowledge. This position differs from creationism in that it does not see itself as an alternative to the sciences of its time. It is also not a natural theology , since no knowledge of God is derived from the knowledge of nature itself.
The practical application of this theoretical model is the topic of the medicinal garden . Medicine makes technical use of the knowledge of nature.
The Soul Paradise takes up the book The Labyrinth of the World by Comenius, which can be understood as a variant of the picaresque novel and as a forerunner of the educational novel . A young man seeks his place in the world, suffers from depression and, after a phase of withdrawal and contemplation, reaches a “working Christianity” (praxis christianismi) .
In the Comenius Garden this is compared to the way of René Descartes . Despair and withdrawal also lead this philosopher to his belief, but after a new epistemological approach was found: "ego sum, ego existo" ('I am, I exist'), later: " ego cogito, ergo sum " ('I think , so I am'). With Comenius, on the other hand, it is the mind that thinks and perceives itself.
Separated by a small fence, the common school is followed by the Latin school . With her it should be remembered that Comenius first became a European celebrity as a reformer of the teaching of Latin. Subsequently, he became a sought-after expert on the reform of the school system. But his concern went beyond that and aimed at a world reform that is Christian-theologically motivated. Historically, these reform ideas belong to the chiliasm that was widespread in the 17th century. Comenius' unfinished main work De rerum humanarum emendatione consultatio catholica (General advice for the improvement of human affairs) could not be fully published until 1966. Chiliastic reform thinking ultimately has paradise in view. Latin and the other world languages are only to be understood as temporary universal means of communication. The aim was to reconstruct the original language, the "Adamite language".
The fact that in the course of church history groups have orientated themselves to Paradise led to their denigration as "Adamites". The Comenius Garden commemorates this with the Adamitic Circle , a circular meadow to the right of the main path. It forms its own area. However, the border is made permeable by loosening bushes and not planting them as hedges. And the Comenius Garden itself alludes to the Paradise Garden.
A straight path lined with fruit trees leads to the wooden stage mentioned above. Comenius has included theatrical performances in the school where the children can practice their Latin. The work Schola ludus also provides for parts of the subject matter to be prepared for Latin dialogues. In this way, language and science lessons are merged and reproduced by the students.
The design of the stage surface with a triangle in a circle in a square goes back to a schematic drawing in Triertium Catholicum . In this work, Comenius explains that spirit (mens) , language (lingua) and hand (manus) make up the special relationship between humans and things (res) . Thinking, speaking and acting (cogitatio, sermo and operatio) are to be trained in the school in the disciplines of logic , grammar and pragmatics .
In the academy area , a few meters further, the first thing you notice is the triangular stone pedestal with the three instruments on its tips. The patch on the surface shows a circle. This shows the eye of God in a reduced form . The three instruments are optical tools that help you to recognize what you otherwise cannot see: in front the telescope and microscope , which were new at the time , in the back the mirror , which already occurs in first nature. Comenius uses them to explain three methods of knowing which, when combined, make complete knowledge possible. The telescope with the possibility of resolving a distant phenomenon into its individual parts stands for analysis ; the microscope - at that time nothing more than a magnifying glass - which makes the composition of details visible on a small scale, stands for synthesis . The mirror depicts what is outside the field of vision, it shows the invisible in the visible. This is what the comparison, Synkrisis, does.
The academy area is also reminiscent of the academies founded in the Renaissance and early modern times . During his stay in England in 1641/1642, Comenius belonged to the Hartlib circle , a forerunner of the Royal Society , to which he addressed himself in the foreword to his work Via Lucis . In 1700, Comenius' grandson Daniel Ernst Jablonski was one of the founders of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, alongside Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz .
The vegetable garden alludes to the 17th century language societies of which some of Comenius' friends were members. These gave themselves company names, sometimes plant names.
The walk through the Bohemian village, the structural substance of which essentially dates from the middle of the 19th century, and the walk through Deutsch-Rixdorf allow a glimpse into local history. The architecture is village-like and differs greatly from that of the immediate neighborhood from the Wilhelminian era and the 20th century.
The descendants of the exiles still have three buildings of their own for worship. They have been burying their deceased relatives since 1751 in the "Bohemian Church of God" in their own areas and in different ways. The separation into three denominations (Moravian, Lutheran and Reformed) goes back to Comenius as "Bishop of the Bohemian Brothers" after the Peace of Westphalia had to declare his religious community dissolved. Its members should try to carry on their tradition within other Protestant churches. Through Zinzendorf the Bohemian Brothers were re-established in Herrnhut.
fauna and Flora
The garden has an abundance of different plants that are rarely found in urban green spaces of this size, e.g. B. about 30 kinds of roses, the berry kinds of Europe, fruit trees, wild herbs, medicinal herbs and even vegetables. This vegetation attracts a number of insects such as bees and dragonflies. Newts have settled in the pond.
use
Around 300 large families with around 1000 children from the neighborhood visit the garden as a place of relaxation. For young people, especially from emigrant families, it has become a permanent meeting point in the neighborhood. In order to protect the garden, the young people have worked out “fixed rules” under the direction of the garden manager, which they adhere to almost completely without violations. Since dogs are not allowed in and the garden gate is closed, parents can let their toddlers play in the grass. Some of the beds in the maze are supplied by children's shops and school classes for teaching purposes. The design and the idea of the garden are explained to interested visitors on walks.
activities
In cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and children from the neighborhood, a series of exhibitions under the main topic of children's knowledge has been started. The first project in 2003 was dedicated to the child's approach to the questions of nothing, emptiness, death and the like. a. (see literature ). The result of the miracle research was presented in the spring of 2008 in the Berlin Museum of Natural History .
literature
- Ralf Heinrich Arning: The Comenius Garden. In: Sabine Seichter (Ed.): Comenius Insights. Life, work, effect. Berlin 2001.
- Ralf Heinrich Arning: A philosophical tour through the Comenius garden. Orient & Occident. Bonn 2007, ISBN 978-3-9806216-3-2 .
- Martina Brandl: In the Comenius Garden. In: naturmagazin , 17th year, 2003, No. 3, p. 44 f.
- Irmela Büttner: Mohamed's apple tree. In: chrismon plus 2/2016, ISSN 1619-6384 , pp. 68-73.
- Claudia Keller: The germ of good. In: Tagesspiegel , July 22, 2008, p. 3.
- Philipp Meuser: New garden art in Berlin - New garden design. Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-87584-054-2 .
- Jürgen Renn and Henning Vierck (eds.): Artists, scientists, children and nothing. A workshop report. Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-00-015226-1 .
- Henning Vierck (ed.): The Comenius garden. A reading sample from the book of nature. Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-89468-028-8 .
- Henning Vierck: The Comenius Garden in Berlin. Berlin 2001.
- Henning Vierck: The Comenius Garden in Berlin as a philosophical practice. In: Journal for Didactics of Philosophy and Ethics , Vol. 23 (2001), Issue 2, pp. 160–164.
- Henning Vierck: First and second nature at Comenius. Seven theses and a song. In: Werner Korthaase u. a. (Ed.): Comenius and the world peace. German Comenius Society, Berlin 2005.
- Henning Vierck: The physical justification of paradise and the Comenius garden. In: Studia comeniana et historica 22 (1992), pp. 311-316.
Web links
- Internet presence of the Comenius garden
- Kulturnetzwerk Neukölln e. V.
- Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
- Recreating paradise as a garden . In: taz , March 28, 2002
- Invisible College on Wikipedia
Individual evidence
- ↑ The fifth Ganghofer Kiezinfo: Wandel , spring 2017. At: qm-ganghofer.de , accessed on April 3, 2019
- ↑ Joh. A. Comenii Physicae ad lumen divinum reformatae Synopsis ... , ed., Trans. u. explained by Dr. Joseph Reber, Giessen 1896; first Leipzig 1633; since 1645 “reformandae” instead of “reformatae” in the title.
- ^ S. Mundus materialis in: De rerum humanarum emendatione consultatio catholica, Editio princeps, Prague 1966, here: Vol. I, esp. From Col. 436
- ↑ This concept of matter should neither be confused nor played off with that of modern physics.
- ↑ "The Labyrinth of the World. This is a clear description of how in this world and all its things there is nothing but error and confusion, insecurity and distress, lies and deceit, fear and misery, and finally disgust and despair; and the paradise of the heart. That describes how only he who lives at home in his heart and closes himself off with God alone in it can achieve true and full peace in his soul and joy ”, translated by Zdenko Baudnik (Jena 1907), with a foreword by Pavel Kohout , Lucerne 1970
- ↑ "Cogitat Mens, ergò est." 'The mind thinks, therefore it is.' ( Pansophiae Gradus Secundus , in: De rerum humanarum emendatione consultatio catholica [see above], here: Vol. I, esp. From Col. 334)
- ↑ That of the Moravian Brethren is called “prayer room” and not “church”.
- ↑ Miracle Research. An experiment by children, scientists and artists
Coordinates: 52 ° 28 ′ 30.2 " N , 13 ° 26 ′ 34.4" E