Günther Grzimek (landscape architect)

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Günther Grzimek (born November 3, 1915 in Cologne ; † May 8, 1996 in Pfeffenhausen ) was a German landscape architect . His most famous work is the Olympiapark in Munich.

family

Grzimek's parents were Günther Grzimek and Emmy Jansen. His brother was the sculptor Waldemar Grzimek . He was married twice and has four children from his first marriage.

education

Grzimek grew up in East Prussia and Berlin and attended grammar school there, which he left as a subpriman to begin an apprenticeship as a gardener . During the two and a half year apprenticeship, he made up his Abitur at an evening school, which gave him access to the Humboldt University in Berlin .

There he studied gardening and landscaping from 1937 to 1942. After serving in the Wehrmacht in Holland , Italy and Poland , he was taken prisoner by France from 1945 to 1947.

Garden department manager in Ulm

After his release, he was initially a self-employed garden architect in Ravensburg , but was brought to Ulm in the same year by the then city planning director Max Guther as head of the municipal garden and cemetery office . About this time of the rebuilding of the almost completely destroyed city he once said in summary: "In the post-war era it was about the green spaces not remaining undervalued" .

In Ulm, he developed the theoretical guidelines and practical examples for his socially oriented urban green planning, which were later intensified:

  • Grzimek designed a coherent network of public green spaces around a dense development that was anchored in the urban zoning plan on an equal footing with the other specialist plans. He rejected single-family housing estates with small private gardens and no public green spaces worth mentioning.
  • In his opinion, green spaces should be multifunctional “performance green” and fulfill their diverse functions as intensively and efficiently as possible.
  • Another effect of his implementation of democratic models in green planning was citizen participation. For example, Ulmer parents' initiatives, with the help of Grzimek, organized the construction of playgrounds and the development of playground equipment with the “Aktion Sandfloh”. Like-minded people from a circle around Otl Aicher and the Ulm Adult Education Center supported him.
  • His user orientation sometimes went so far that he did not initially build fixed paths in his green spaces, but first waited to see where the beaten track developed. This attitude was also an expression of cost efficiency in order to prevent expensive bad planning.

Grzimek remained active in Ulm until he founded his engineering office for green planning in 1960.

Professor at the Kunsthochschule Kassel

In 1965 he succeeded Hermann Mattern Professor at the University of Fine Arts in Kassel until 1972. At documenta 4 he was a member of the “documenta Council”. Günther Grzimek did not classify landscape planning as garden art; in his opinion, art should remain the task of artists. In 1969, students and lecturer colleagues in Kassel suggested to Grzimek the establishment of a new kind of working group in which students and lecturers should work on projects on a democratic basis. An association "Development Group for Landscape Culture" (EGL) was founded for this purpose. In 1973 the association became the "EGL GmbH - Development and Design of Landscape" office. The employees became shareholders and seven branch offices with different focuses were established.

Olympic Park Munich

Olympic Park Munich

His plans for the Munich Olympic Park also fell during his time in Kassel. The Olympiapark marks the beginning of a new era in German landscape design, in line with the general social upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s. The green planning should now also become “democratic”. Grzimek does this most consistently. He did not design open spaces for the privileged, but wanted optimal green supply for all strata of the population. Usability was more important to him than a creative idea. According to Grzimek, the fact that the Olympic Park still has a high aesthetic quality is due to the fact that the park “derives its shape right down to the details from an aesthetics of the self-evident, which in the sense of a humane ecology is the free and active self-realization of its users Criterion makes. ” (Source: Günther Grzimek, Stefan Rainer, 1983) “ If we do something, then we must not do something that says, oh, Grzimek did it, we have to do it that way That it goes without saying. That people simply say, I felt really good [...] We wanted to make an object of use. "

Professor at the Technical University of Munich

From 1972 until his retirement in 1981, Grzimek was a full professor at the "Chair and Institute for Landscape Architecture" at the Technical University of Munich in Weihenstephan . After taking office, he changed the focus of the curriculum considerably. Two years after his retirement, Professor Peter Latz succeeded Grzimek in 1983.

Due to his demand for absolute user orientation, Grzimek attached great importance to social and planning science subjects. He completely eliminated creative subjects, and the scientific basics were reduced to a minimum. His goal was not the garden artist of earlier times, but the urban planning-oriented, interdisciplinary green planner. Theory and practice were now given the same value in the training. He moved away from the pure lectures towards a course consisting mainly of seminars and teamwork. In 1972 the course was renamed "Landespflege" and upgraded with the award of the academic degree "Diplomingenieur" for graduates of this department.

Following the example of EGL in Kassel, Grzimek also founded an office called “Grünplan GmbH” in Weihenstephan.

Taking possession of the lawn

In 1983, in an exhibition and its catalog, Grzimek summarized his lifelong ideas of the social significance of open spaces. Both were "the call to take possession of the urban open spaces, the renunciation of distance and representation, the 'democratization' of public spaces, which ultimately also meant an opening up of the design and design processes."

Günther Grzimek died on May 8, 1996 in his then home town of Holzhausen near Pfeffenhausen in Lower Bavaria. His grave is in the Biberach an der Riss city ​​cemetery , which he designed himself during his lifetime.

Awards

On June 19, 1973 Günther Grzimek was awarded the Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell Ring of Honor by the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts , the highest honor in his profession.

The city of Munich awarded him the architecture prize.

Works

Landscape architectural works

Grzimek mainly developed urban development concepts for landscape planning, e.g. B. for Ulm , Darmstadt , Ludwigsburg , Aschaffenburg and Biberach an der Riss.

His main projects carried out include a .:

Other Projects:

He worked with the architect Günter Behnisch on numerous projects .

In addition, he also took part in many important competitions with designs, such as B. for the federal buildings in Bonn.

bibliography

  • Green planning in Ulm: Problems of a growing city , Ulm: Stadtverwaltung (Ed.), 1956
  • Green planning Darmstadt , Darmstadt: Roether, 1965
  • From the rise of modern times , 1966
  • Games and Sports in the Urban Landscape: Experiences and Examples for Tomorrow , Munich: Callwey, 1972
  • Thoughts on urban and landscape architecture since Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell , Munich: Callwey, 1973
  • Competition Bundesgartenschau Kassel 1981: Landscape architecture as documenta hortensis , in: Garten + Landschaft, Vol. 87 (1977), 5, pp. 296–308
  • Seizure of the lawn , Munich: Callwey, 1983

literature

  • Gerhard Grzimek, Rupprecht Grzimek: The Grzimek family from Oberglogau in Upper Silesia. o. O., 1986
  • Stefan Leppert: On the 80th birthday of Günther Grzimek - Taking ownership of the lawn , in: Garten + Landschaft H. 1, 1996
  • Winfried Jerney: Entering the lawn is allowed - Günther Grzimek: Planning with the Citizens , in: Garten + Landschaft, H. 8, 2003 (online text see web links)

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Süddeutsche Zeitung: Mourning Professor Grzimek , May 11, 1996, regional edition Freising
  2. ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Lawyer in the sense of human ecology , November 3, 1995, regional edition Freising, page 7
personal data
SURNAME Grzimek, Günther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German landscape architect
DATE OF BIRTH November 3, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH May 8, 1996
Place of death Biberach an der Riss