Michael Seiler

Michael Seiler (born November 5, 1939 in Berlin ) is a German garden historian. Seiler has made a name for himself in particular as a researcher and restorer of gardens by Peter Joseph Lenné in Klein-Glienicke and on Pfaueninsel and was gardening director of the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation in Berlin-Brandenburg .

Life

Seiler studied surveying technology at the Berlin State Engineering School and worked as a surveying engineer for the Senator for Construction and Housing from 1963 . From 1971 he worked as a specialist teacher at the Otto Bartning School, vocational school and technical college for the construction industry on the Spandau Citadel .

In 1978/79 he carried out excavations and investigations in the Pleasureground of the Park Klein-Glienicke for the Berlin Garden Monument Preservation , which had been preceded by extensive study of the sources. The restoration work of the garden monument maintenance carried out below was based on this.

In 1977 Seiler began studying gardening and landscape design at the Technical University of Berlin , which he completed in 1986 with a thesis on the palm house on the Pfaueninsel.

In 1979, at the instigation of Martin Sperlich , he was transferred to the administration of the State Palaces and Gardens of Berlin as head of the Pfaueninsel department . At the same time, Seiler continued his university studies and graduated in 1986 (the same year of his diploma thesis) with a doctorate at the Hamburg University of the Arts (Department of Architecture). His dissertation is entitled The history of the development of the Klein-Glienicke landscape garden 1796-1883 .

Seiler's activity in the Pfaueninsel landscape garden was extensive. In the run-up to the Lenné anniversary in 1989, for example, the area of ​​the swing path and the rose garden were reconstructed after garden archaeological excavations.

In 1989, Seiler began teaching as an honorary professor in the history department at the Free University of Berlin. When the Foundation Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg was formed in 1995, Seiler became garden director. For ten years he successfully continued the restoration of the parks, especially the areas in Babelsberg , Sacrow and the New Garden that were destroyed by the GDR border systems .

On September 14, 2000, the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts awarded him the Sckell-Ring .

At the end of 2004, Seiler retired and on November 22, 2005 received the Cross of Merit on Ribbon from Prime Minister Matthias Platzeck for his services to Potsdam's UNESCO World Heritage.

In 2003, Seiler took over the chairmanship of the Pückler Society , which he helped to found in 1979. In this he is still active.

From 2014 to 2018, Seiler advised on reconstruction measures in the Klein-Glienicke landscape garden, on the history of which he presented his dissertation in 1986.

Fonts

• with Martin Sperlich: Glienicke Castle and Park. Berlin 1977 ( Zehlendorfer Chronik. 1/77).
• New investigations into the original design and restoration of the pleasure ground by Klein-Glienicke, In: Detlef Heikamp (ed.): Schlösser, Gärten, Berlin. Festschrift for Martin Sperlich on his 60th birthday in 1979. Wasmuth, Tübingen 1980, pp. 107–130.
• For wood use by PJ Lenné. In: The Garden Department. 1982, pp. 366-377.
• with Martin Sperlich: Glienicke Castle and Park. Berlin 1987 ( Zehlendorfer Chronik 6/87).
• The Palm House on Peacock Island: History of its structural and horticultural design. Haude & Spener, Berlin 1989.
• with Jörg Wacker: Insel Potsdam. A cultural and historical companion through the Potsdam park landscape. Nishen, Berlin 1991.
• The Peacock Island. 1793-1993. New ed. for the 200th garden anniversary. Administration of the State Palaces and Gardens, Berlin 1993.
• Noblesse oblige! The Berlin suburb and the visual connections of the gardens. In: Sabine Bohle-Heintzenberg, Manfred Hamm: The Berlin suburb: History and architecture of a Potsdam district. Nicolai, Berlin 1995, pp. 154-160.
• The emperor and the cedar on the Pfaueninsel. Pückler Society , Berlin 1998.
• Staged landscapes: glimpses into Prussian Arcadia. Transit, Berlin 1999.
• The Peacock Island. 2., rework. Edition, Potsdam 2000.
• Nothing thrives without care. The Potsdam park landscape and its gardeners. Potsdam 2001.
• Foundation Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg (Ed.): Prussian Green. Court gardener in Brandenburg-Prussia. Henschel, Leipzig 2004.
• Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg (Ed.): Paths to the Garden - [Festschrift] dedicated to Michael Seiler on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Koehler and Amelang, Leipzig 2004.
• with Michael Niedermeier (Red.): The gardens of Ermenonville. Pückler Society, Berlin 2007.
• Landscape garden Pfaueninsel. History of its creation and maintenance . VDG, Weimar 2020.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The life data before 1986 after the curriculum vitae in: Michael Seiler, The development history of the landscape garden Klein-Glienicke 1796-1883 . Dissertation, Hamburg 1986.