Cologne city forest
The Cologne City Forest is an extensive park created at the end of the 19th century in the western Cologne district of Lindenthal . The green area, equipped with a game reserve , ponds and water channels, as well as sports and playgrounds and an extensive network of paths, is a popular local recreation area on the left bank of the Rhine .
location
The core area of today's urban forest is encompassed by the following roads (counter-clockwise):
The Fürst-Pückler-Straße , named after the landscape architect , the Friedrich-Schmidt-Straße (architect and member of the Kölner Dombauhütte), the military ring road leading along the outer green belt of the city and the Dürener Straße leading to Marsdorf and on to Frechen to the Kitschburger Straße which was called Mühlweg until 1884. Behind the development on the edge of the building on small side streets , Haydnstraße and its extension as a forest path continue the boundaries of the city forest to the military ring. The green areas of the city forest extend as far as the districts of Braunsfeld and Müngersdorf .
The system that continues beyond the military ring between Dürener and Aachener Straße is known as the urban forest expansion.
history
Kitschburg estate
The kitsch castle , which formerly stood in the western foreland of the city, with its associated homesteads and lands, located between Aachener Strasse and Dürener Strasse, was already included in tax lists in 1669. In 1715 the property with 30 acres of land came into the possession of the Cologne seminary , to which it was transferred by the cathedral capitular Johann Heinrich von Mörs . Like many other properties, Gut Kitschburg became the property of a spiritual corporation during the French era . During this time, the Cologne banker Abraham Schaaffhausen acquired the Kitschburg and converted the country house of the former seminary into his summer residence . Then it passed to Josef von Groote through inheritance and marriage . In 1831, the number of residents of the Kitschburg and the Hofgut with its outbuildings was recorded in a tax collection by the Efferen mayor who was responsible at the time . Eleven residents and two fireplaces (households) were listed. After the incorporation of Lindenthal by Cologne in 1888, the city acquired the extensive site with its buildings. The oldest remnant of this prehistory is a remnant of the Kitschburg estate, one of its outbuildings (the framework of the roof structure bears the year 1759), it is located at Dürener Straße 285.
Planning and building decision
In the forest, arable and meadow area between Dürener Strasse and Aachener Strasse, and in the land of the Kitschburg with its estate, which was acquired by the city of Cologne in 1895, the Cologne city forest was to be laid out according to the design of the city's horticultural director Adolf Kowallek . The decision to carry out the construction project was made by the city council on July 4, 1895.
Kowallek, under whose direction the Volksgarten in Cologne's Südstadt district had already been built a few years earlier , designed a park landscape for the intended area that was to be shaped by the style of historicism . The existing facilities at the Kitschburg , designed by his predecessors in the office of Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe and Jakob Greiß , as well as the old trees in the park of the court of the same name were to be integrated into the emerging urban forest.
Kowallek's sketch of the city forest from 1895 has damaged areas, but clearly shows many details that are still visible today. You can see the development section between Dürenerstrasse and Haydnstrasse, the location of the “Villa Kitschburg” and its outbuildings, the easily recognizable little “Vogelinsel”, the lush network of paths around the meadows and forest areas and the contours of the city forest pond. Canals had not yet been considered at this point. The planned location of the sports facilities, the cycle track and the tennis courts was already sketched out and is still hinted at in a horseshoe-shaped loop around today's tennis facilities. The sheet shows Kitschburger Strasse running through the park, as well as Friedrich-Schmidt- and Fürst-Pückler-Strasse, which run towards the star-shaped Hältzplatz , named after a 15th-century Cologne master builder .
Ponds and canals
Robert Jung , who after the death of Adolf Kowallek in May 1902 until April 1903 provisionally took over the management of the municipal garden administration, wrote in 1896: The lake with two islands, one of which is accessible via a bridge, receives its water from the one in the south ( on Dürener Straße) flowing into the Frechener Bach.
In March 1896 work began on creating a 3.9 hectare pond next to the old kitsch castle. With the excavation carried by a field railway , an accumulating earth mass of 54,000 cubic meters , the disused brickworks in the area were filled. First of all, the Frechener Bach fed the pond. However, since this contained considerable amounts of waste water , the sediment of which settled in the pond, a pumping station for the water supply was built in 1889. It was technically designed so that for the planned fountain in the large pond, an hourly flow rate of around 150 m³ could be pumped.
In the forest further to the west, another smaller pond was created next to the forest tavern opened in May 1898. At the turn of the century, the costly “Stadtwald” project (2.5 million gold marks ) was realized, but redesigns and extensions were made until 1920.
Festival in the city forest
Towards the end of the 19th century, singing departments for gymnastics or sports clubs and workers' choirs were founded in many places throughout Germany . In July 1899 a major event took place for the first time on the so-called “People's Meadows” of the city forest, the “Patriotic Festival” , which was held under the sign of a growing national feeling. Participants from 108 sports and singing clubs took part in the major event and showed their skills to around 40,000 spectators. The event was initiated by the “Association of the Citizens of Cologne for the Promotion of German National Festivals”. The festival began with an opening song from a choir made up of several hundred singers , after which a telegram of greeting sent to Kaiser Wilhelm was read out. It said:
- The united Cologne gymnasts, athletes, games, rowers, cyclists, singing, warriors and music clubs send their most respectful greetings and vows to Your Majesty, the tireless promoter of all physical exercise and song, from the first Patriotic Festival in the city forest of Cologne to stand up for the empire and its emperor with heart and hand .
Then the patriotic festival began.
The park after the imperial era
Konrad Adenauer also pushed Kowallek's concept of combining sport and nature . In 1917, the Cologne city council elected him mayor . In this function of his life's work, Adenauer, who lived on the edge of the city forest in the street named after the composer Max Bruch , was able to create lasting values especially for the “Cologne Green”. Adenauer, who was now able to plan based on Fritz Schumacher's general development plan from 1920–1923, had the landscaping of the Lindenthal green spaces implemented by Fritz Encke, director of horticulture .
Sports facilities and playgrounds
Sports fields and playgrounds had been created along the canal; In the northern area facing Friedrich-Schmidt-Straße there was a riding arena, a sports field with a cycle track, a cycle track with a length of 400 meters and eleven tennis courts with changing facilities.
The municipal sports facilities in the municipal forest, which were laid out around 1903/04, also included a cycling track , around which tennis courts were laid out. The sports grounds were confiscated by the British occupiers after the First World War around 1919. The facility has been used by a tennis club from 1933 until today.
In the middle of the city forest there was also a motorsport racing track, on whose circuit in the 1930s the popular "Cologne city forest races" for motorcycles and automobiles were held (not to be confused with the aforementioned "city forest railway", which was a pure cycling facility).
A boat service had been set up on the two ponds for the summer. In order to make ice sports possible in the winter months, the two bodies of water were connected with an approximately 750 m long canal. Overall, the canal sections are crossed by 6 bridges of different sizes and designs. The time it was built extends from the end of the 19th century until it was rebuilt after the last world war. The bridge construction on the last section of the canal in front of the "small" pond bears the distinctive reference "AD 1919" on its eastern flank. The oldest building is probably the arch bridge made of brick , the wrought-iron grating of which in the middle prevents access to the small island to protect the waterfowl from breeding .
gastronomy
The “Cöln Lindenthal Waldschenke” in the inner park area offered catering appropriate to the number of visitors. Its idyllic location and a large terrace, in front of which a spacious playground stretched, made it a popular destination for day trippers. Even illustrious guests are said to have stayed there, Winston Churchill is said to have had his tea there, and Willi Ostermann is said to have been a frequent guest at the Waldschenke.
The house, which was converted from the "Villa Kitschburg" into the Stadtwald restaurant in 1901, not only catered for the physical well-being, it was also the social meeting point of the western Cologne suburbs. With a beautiful garden terrace with a “lake view”, visitors were offered space of almost 8,000 m². The other rooms of the house, the large hall alone, was designed for 500 people and served countless occasions such as conferences, weddings, communion celebrations and dance or carnival events. The house employed over 50 people in the summer months.
In the 1960s, the city decided to sell the "Stadtwaldrestaurant" property to the mineral oil company Esso AG. The " Esso Motor Hotel " that was then built still offered visitors to the city forest the opportunity to visit a restaurant or café, but the people of Cologne missed the flair of the old building. In his book on Lindenthal, Volker Gröbe quotes the Cologne dialect author Lis Böhle . She wrote: “.. widder e stock vum ahle Kölle grave. Schad dröm ". The new hotel later traded under the name "Crest" and for a long time as Holiday Inn Cologne - Am Stadtwald. Since 2013 the hotel has been called "Leonardo Hotel Köln am Stadtwald".
Urban forest expansion
Soon after the First World War, in 1919, as part of job creation measures, the urban forest was expanded by around 100 hectares on the former corridors of the Morsdorfer Hof according to plans by Fritz Encke. Three paths in the original urban forest continue beyond the military ring. The main connection route was led with a pedestrian bridge over the military ring. The earth masses that were excavated from the construction of the Adenauer Weiher were heaped up to form two viewing hills. A restaurant was built by the pond, which was used by the Belgian Armed Forces in Cologne from 1948 to 2003 under the name Klub Astoria as an officers' casino. After the armed forces moved away and a renovation was carried out, the city of Cologne has been leasing the building since 2007. It operates as a restaurant with a beer garden under the name Club Astoria . From 1920 to 1923, the sports facilities of Sportpark Müngersdorf to the southwest were built at the same time . In 1924, work on the extension was completed. The continuation of the green areas towards Bonner Strasse took place from 1927 under Theodor Nussbaum .
Today's urban forest
The area of the urban forest, including the approximately 40 hectare wildlife park and the urban forest expansion of about 100 hectares, is now 205.3 hectares. Due to its relatively recent history and the resulting interventions in structural thinning , the urban forest's stock of trees is generally no older than 80 Years. The continuous afforestation since the 1920s predominantly preferred hardwood species. Today the stock is very species-rich, but the local wood species beech , oak , ash , linden and maple predominate. Conifers are only found sporadically . Exotic tree species, as they often occur in older parks ( Cologne City Garden ), are rare.
Renovations
The redevelopment measures carried out in the urban forest area by the Kölner Grün Foundation , which was established in 2004, are striking. Thanks to the sponsorships organized by the foundation, almost all of the old benches could be replaced with new ones. In autumn 2007 the publicly accessible banks of the large pond were re-paved, also on behalf of the foundation. For this purpose, a section of the bank to be renewed was dammed from the water and a trench was dug. This was covered with a water-impermeable layer of clay on its sole, on which an applied layer of gravel was compacted. After this preliminary work, a concrete foundation was poured on , on which roughly hewn stone blocks were then added to and on top of each other to form a wall. The blocks, which came from a quarry in the Luxembourg border area, were also connected to one another by reinforcement . The specified depth of the finished seawall is 1.40 m from the top edge of the capping stone.
particularities
The park is cut through by Kitschburger Straße. Your development in the park area consists of only a few private houses on the left from Dürener Strasse to Haydnstrasse. The street has three marked pedestrian crossings in the parking area and has been closed to car traffic on weekends and public holidays for more than 20 years. However, it is uncertain whether the residents of the district will be permanently closed to through traffic. The east and main entrance of the zoo is located on a short dead-end street (with parking) on Kitschburger Straße.
All of today's water areas are connected to each other and to the pumping station on the corner of Kitschburgerstrasse and Haydnstrasse. The pumping station runs for some time every day to compensate for the water loss due to seepage. During this time, the fountain in the Stadtwaldweiher also bubbles .
Stadtwald Zoo
Around 1908, work began on the side of Haydnstrasse and above Kitschburger Strasse on a forest and meadow area of around 8 hectares as an enclosure for fallow deer and roe deer . This area, which is very popular with families with small children because of the tame animals, is still operated today and is under the forest administration . It was closed during the Second World War and was reopened in 1951 at the urging of the Cologne residents.
In the enclosed area there is the area of the roe deer, which is open to the circular paths, which since the new beginning in 1951 (a bourgeoisie and three dams) has grown to a large herd, and some separately fenced areas for small animals. The area with spacious meadows has a grove-like forest in various places and is crossed by a narrow stream on the south and west sides . If the visitor leaves the zoo through one of the two western exits, he comes across the only slightly raised embankment of a railway line in the adjacent wood.
Railway line
The single-track , non-electrified Cologne – Frechen railway crosses the city forest in a north-south direction. It is the route used by the HGK , the former Cologne-Frechen-Benzelrath railway, to transport goods . Since the city forest area with its zoo and many playgrounds distributed around the area is increasingly frequented by children, the freight trains passing through the city forest at moderate speed draw attention to their passage through permanent warning signals.
The route leaves the parking area on the northwest side on Friedrich-Schmidt-Strasse, which is provided with a barrier. A gatekeeper house, which has become superfluous due to the automation of the signal and barrier operation, is a listed building .
Memorial cross and memorial
Above the level crossing, also on Friedrich-Schmidt-Straße, there is another monument on the edge of the forest. It was erected there at Vincenz-Statz-Strasse and commemorates the attack by the RAF in September 1977 . During the kidnapping of the passing President of the BDI , Hanns Martin Schleyer , four people were murdered by RAF terrorists.
Transport links
The Lindenthaler Stadtwald can be reached by tram lines 1, 7 and 13 as well as bus line 136 from many stops. Line 1 offers all stations between the Aachener Straße / Gürtel stop and “Alter Militärring” in Müngersdorf. With the lines 7 and 13 it is all stations between Aachener Straße / Gürtel and Dürener Straße / Gürtel and further with the line 7 and the bus line all stops of the Dürener Straße to Hohenlind.
Web links
literature
- Werner Adams, Joachim Bauer (ed.): From the botanical garden to urban green - 200 years of Cologne green. Bachem Verlag, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-7616-1460-8 .
- Carl Dietmar: The Chronicle of Cologne. Chronik-Verlag, Dortmund 1991, ISBN 3-611-00193-7 .
- Ute Fendel: Culture Paths Cologne-Lindenthal. City of Cologne, Cologne 2000.
- Konrad Adenauer, Volker Gröbe: Streets and squares in Lindenthal. Bachen Verlag, Cologne 1992, ISBN 3-7616-1018-1 .
- Konrad Adenauer, Volker Gröbe: Lindenthal. The development of a Cologne suburb. Bachen Verlag, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-7616-1603-1 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Konrad Adenauer, Volker Gröbe, in: Streets and squares in Lindenthal p. 90
- ↑ Carl Dietmar, p. 84
- ↑ Joachim Bauer / Carmen Kohls, p. 22
- ↑ Carl Dietmar, p. 284
- ↑ Carl Dietmar, p. 293
- ↑ Entry on motorsport racetrack in the Lindenthaler Stadtwald in the database " KuLaDig " of the Rhineland Regional Association , accessed on February 16, 2017.
- ^ Joachim Bauer: Stadtwald . In: Werner Adams, Joachim Bauer (Hrsg.): From the botanical garden to urban green - 200 years of Cologne green. Bachem Verlag, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-7616-1460-8 , p. 68 f.
- ^ Adenauer, Gröbe: Adenauer, Gröbe: Lindenthal. The development of a Cologne suburb , p. 109 ff
- ^ Quote "... buried a piece of old Cologne again. It's a shame ”. In: Konrad Adenauer, Volker Gröbe, in: Lindenthal. The development of a Cologne suburb. P. 110
- ↑ Monika Freifrau Geyr von Schweppenburg: The Cologne Green System , edited by the Kölner Grün Foundation, Cologne undated, p. 92 ff
- ↑ Cologne Journal about the city forest ( Memento of the original from September 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Kölner Stadtanzeiger: Recreation area also for animals, July 17, 2007 ( Memento of the original from March 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 6, 2014
- ↑ Kölner Grün.de: Report May 25, 2007 ( Memento of the original from October 19, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 6, 2014
- ↑ Signs of the "Kölner Grün" foundation in the city forest
- ↑ Lindenthaler Tierpark , accessed on June 22, 2020
- ^ History of the Lindenthal Zoo , accessed on March 6, 2014
Coordinates: 50 ° 55 ′ 46 ″ N , 6 ° 53 ′ 22 ″ E