Mertens brothers

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Walter (* 1885 ; † 1943 ) and Oskar Mertens (* 1887 ; † 1976 ) were Swiss garden architects . From 1907 to 1944 they ran a horticultural company in Zurich under the name of the Mertens brothers . Alongside Gustav Ammann and Johannes Schweizer , they were among the most important representatives of the architectural garden in Switzerland before they turned to the residential garden style in the 1930s .

Life

Walter and Oskar Mertens were the sons of the Swiss horticultural architect Evariste Mertens , who, among other things, played a key role in the execution of the Zurich quay and had been running a horticultural company in Zurich since 1889.

The two followed in their father's footsteps: The older one, Walter Mertens, attended the Châtelaine horticultural school near Geneva and did an internship in England. Oskar, who is two years younger than him, began his studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich , completed internships in France, Holland and England, before completing his training with Peter Behrens at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Düsseldorf . After the death of their father, the two brothers took over their father's company, with Oskar Mertens acting as managing director. In addition, Oskar Mertens was a horticultural teacher at the horticultural school in Niederlenz from 1913 to 1940. He found his final resting place in the Enzenbühl cemetery in Zurich

Work as a garden architect

The Mertens brothers planned and carried out a number of architectural designs for public and private clients. In addition to numerous exhibition gardens, such as gardens for the Swiss National Exhibitions in Bern in 1914 and in Zurich in 1939, they created magnificent gardens in the villa quarters of various cities, such as B. 1916 the garden of the Villa Bomonti in Bern and the garden de Groot in Zurich. In addition, they were designed by well-known architects, u. a. by Karl Moser, brought in for the garden design of the representative buildings of the time such as the University of Zurich . From 1930 the Mertens brothers followed the development of the residential garden and dealt more and more with landscape planning. For example, the shoreline design of the Sihlsee dates from this time .

Works

  • Garden of the Villa Tobler in Zurich's old town , 1913
  • Exhibition garden for the Swiss National Exhibition 1914 in Bern
  • Environment design at the University of Zurich , 1914
  • Garden of the Villa Bomonti in Bern, 1916
  • De Groot garden in Zurich, 1916
  • Exhibition garden for the Swiss Werkbund exhibition in Zurich in 1918
  • Exhibition garden for the Zurich horticultural exhibition ZÜGA 1933
  • Shoreline design of the Sihlsee (created in 1937 by damming the Sihl )
  • Exhibition garden for the Swiss National Exhibition 1939 in Zurich (Landi)

literature

  • Annemarie Bucher: From landscape garden to garden landscape: garden art between 1880 and 1980 in the archive for Swiss garden architecture and landscape planning . vdf Hochschulverlag AG, Zurich 1996.
  • Eva Ruoff: Horticulture in Meilen: the history of the Mertens brothers. In: Heimatbuch Meilen, 39, 1999, pp. 48–62.

Web links