Gottfried Kühn

Gottfried Kühn (born May 28, 1912 in Berlin ; † July 8, 2002 in Niefern-Öschelbronn near Pforzheim ) was an important Cologne garden and landscape architect who designed more than 3000 objects in private and public spaces.

Life

Kühn grew up as the son of a farmer on the Steineck monastery in Neumark . Attendance of the grammar school in Bad Freienwalde 1930/31 pupil of Karl Foerster in his perennial nursery in Potsdam-Bornim , today's Karl-Foerster-Garten . After training as a garden and landscape designer at the Horticultural School and Research Institute (LuFA) in Berlin-Dahlem , he worked in the Berlin area and in East Prussia , from 1936 in a Karl Foerster branch in Königsberg in Prussia . From 1939 to 1945 he was a soldier, most recently as commander of a tank division and severely wounded several times. Despite war injury , he was able to continue his professional career. In 1949 he worked in the Bonn office of the Foerster student Hermann Mattern on the green design of the government buildings. In 1951 he opened his own office in Cologne-Hahnwald , which he managed until 1984. He was also a member of the German Werkbund . In 1979 he retired to Landscheider Mühle near Wittlich .

plant

Kühn was interested in building house gardens. He is best known for his work for the federal garden shows . Except for 1961 he was represented at all shows from 1957 to 1975. In 1957 he designed three house gardens for the 1957 Federal Horticultural Show in Cologne, which he restored there for the 1971 Federal Horticultural Show . Otherwise he was responsible for the overall design of the Cologne Rheinaue at the 71 show. There he designed some terraced house gardens for contemporary living in the garden , plus perennial gardens and the flower meadow. For the University of Cologne he was responsible for the overall green planning for the expansion of the university. He was also responsible for embedding the student village of Efferen of the Cologne student union on the site of a former brick factory.

Kugelbrunnen , Cologne-Porz , designed by Kühn in 1974

Karlsruhe Palace Gardens 1967

He also laid out the garden of his studio house in Hahnwald. In Cologne-Zündorf he planned the Groov to become a popular leisure facility (1974-78).

At his express request, his estate will be looked after by the University of the Arts in Berlin, the city where he was born and where he was trained . Publications are also expected from there.

Prices

Kühn was honored by some associations and societies. The State Prize of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (1963), the Hugo Häring Prize of the BDA Baden-Württemberg (1970) for the redesign of the Karlsruhe Palace Gardens for the 1967 Federal Horticultural Show and the Karl Foerster Ring (1974) deserve special mention . In 1975 he was the first garden architect to receive the Cologne Architecture Prize . One of his last jobs was the expansion of his retirement home in the Eifel, for which he received the 1987 award for exemplary building from the Federation of German Landscape Architects , Rhineland-Palatinate group.

Posthumous honors

The regional association Rhineland-Palatinate / Saarland of the BDLA has been awarding the Gottfried Kühn Prize as a landscape architecture prize in three categories since 2004 : open spaces in public spaces, objects in the open / open landscape and private open spaces. The prizes are awarded every 5 years.

Publications

• Small gardens made big , Gartenschönheit, 46th year, volume 4, Aachen 1965
• Planned wilderness

Individual evidence

1. ↑ BDA Baden-Württemberg  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

Web links

• Entry at Karl Foerster Foundation (with picture)
• Entry at UdKünste with a link to the Kalliope database
• Kühn and Gottfried Kühn Prize on the pages of the bdla-rps