Napoleonsberg (Düsseldorf)

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View from Napoleonsberg onto lawns in the Hofgarten of Düsseldorf, 2017
Napoleonsberg, view from the southwest, 2018

The Napoleonsberg is a heaped mountain in the Hofgarten of Düsseldorf . The hill is named after the French Emperor Napoleon I , who in 1811, shortly after a state visit to Düsseldorf in his capacity as regent of the Grand Duchy of Berg, created the fiscal basis for the expansion and upgrading of the court garden to an English landscape garden through a "beautification decree" . Within this historical park , the Napoleonsberg has the function of a landscape design element and a lookout point . Originally, the view from there could wander far over the urban landscape, which had been upgraded through beautification measures, in particular over the open lawns of the courtyard garden to the Ratinger Tor , the then Boulevard Napoleon and the city silhouette of the early 19th century. Closed wood structures with large-crowned trees, which grew mainly at the foot and along the courtyard garden ramp , limit the view today.

history

Düsseldorf with its surroundings after looped fortifications , urban planning plan for the laying down of the city fortifications and redesign of the areas, 1809: The plan shows the extension of the courtyard garden to the Rhine, embedded in the planned Napoleonsberg and the first outlines of a planned security port.
The Hofgarten in Düsseldorf in 1895 : The garden plan by the city gardener Heinrich Hillebrecht shows the Napoleonsberg with its planting at the end of the 19th century.
Napoleonsberg as a point de vue on Alleestraße, photo around 1910

Even before Article VI of the Peace of Lunéville between the Holy Roman Empire and France on February 9, 1801 stipulated that the city ​​fortifications of Düsseldorf, which had been badly demolished in the First Coalition War, could not be restored, planners under Franz Karl Joseph Anton von Hompesch zu Bolheim had to work At the request of the sovereign Maximilian, an urban planning concept developed for a new use of the fortress area. In addition to the redesign and beautification of the city by expanding the courtyard garden, esplanades and new waters fed by the Düssel ( avenue on the Landskrone , Stadtgraben , Neuer Hofgarten ), a new port on the Rhine on the north side of the city was also planned.

This port, known as the security port, was to replace the old port, which stretched from the 16th century in the area of Hafenstrasse - between the old town and the citadel. The technical plans that were necessary for the construction of the new facilities were developed - since January 28, 1802 in a "Commission for the management of building matters" under the court councilor Georg Arnold Jacobi - the court architect Kaspar Anton Huschberger , the chief engineer FH von Douwe (also van Douwen ) and the hydraulic engineer Christian Wilhelm G. Bauer. In 1803/1804 the garden architect Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe joined this planning team , who embedded the plans in a scheme of the English landscape garden . The planning was continued when Maximilian transferred the Duchy of Berg including its capital Düsseldorf to the French Emperor Napoleon in 1806, who in turn passed sovereignty over the territory to his brother-in-law Joachim Murat and in 1809 to his underage nephew Napoléon Louis Bonaparte .

When Napoleon, regent of the Grand Duchy of Berg since 1808 , personally visited the Bergisch capital on a state visit in November 1811 , the plans for the urban redesign of Düsseldorf were discussed with him. Shortly after his visit, Napoleon issued the so-called “embellishment decree” on December 17, 1811. In this decree , among other things, in addition to the expansion of the courtyard garden, the construction of the security harbor within two years, the necessary financial resources (from the property tax of the Grand Duchy of Berg) and the transfer of the site to the city of Düsseldorf.

The excavation work for the harbor basin was carried out by " French galley slaves ". Weyhe used the soil material that resulted from the excavation of the harbor basin to model the terrain in garden architecture. In addition to a small hill near the banks of the Rhine, which was given the name Schöne Aussicht , he had the Napoleonsberg filled up. To make the mountain appear more impressive, he had elms planted on its plateau , which later reached a considerable height.

In English landscape gardens, according to the contemporary garden theory spread by Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld in German-speaking countries, mountains were used to create vantage points for walks through which the environment could be perceived in the sense of the world of emotions and thoughts of sensitivity and romance . Weyhe conceived the location of Napoleonsberg and its viewing platform in such a way that the viewer was offered a view in which the new garden landscape of the Hofgarten merged with the Biedermeier, classicist urban landscape of Düsseldorf to form a picturesque unit. Weyhe had already developed the prototype of a landscape garden in which the view of the urban landscape was the main point of view for the garden design with the Lousberg Park in Aachen a short time before.

By 1900 the elms planned by Weyhe on the Napoleonsberg had grown to an impressive size. At the same but the look on lawns on the former, decorated with trees and numerous monuments was Alleestraße not obstructed by tree growth, then the viewer that after a contemporary report offered a "city of rare beauty".

In 1953, on the edge of the Napoleonsberg plateau, the western staircase was framed by a monument in memory of Heinrich Heine . This facility, which goes back to a donation from the Kunstverein for the Rhineland and Westphalia and was designed by the Düsseldorf sculptor Ivo Beucker , consists of a natural stone wall lined with a staircase and a natural stone pedestal on which the bronze figure Harmonie by the sculptor Aristide Maillol stands. Inscriptions relating to Heine and the theme of the Maillol figure are carved into the stone wall. In addition, a medallion with the profile of Heinrich Heine, which Ivo Beucker had created in 1952, was set into the wall.

  • West side of the Napoleonsberg in May 2018

  • Heinrich Heine monument complex by Ivo Beucker with bronze sculpture Harmonie by Aristide Maillol , 1953

  • Bronze sculpture harmony

  • Inscription on the stone wall

  • Heine medallion by Ivo Beucker, 1952

literature

  • Napoleonsberg . In: Architects and Engineers Association Düsseldorf (ed.): Düsseldorf and its buildings . Self-published, Düsseldorf 1904, p. 59.

Web links

Commons : Napoleonsberg Düsseldorf  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Irene Markowitz: The new Düsseldorf - The garden city . In: Wieland Koenig, Stadtmuseum Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf (Ed.): Düsseldorfer Gartenlust . Düsseldorf 1987, p. 89
  2. ^ Ottomar Moeller: The building history of Düsseldorf . In: Düsseldorfer Geschichtsverein (Hrsg.): History of the city of Düsseldorf. Festschrift for the 600th anniversary . Verlag von C. Kraus, Düsseldorf 1888, p. 381 ( digitized version )
  3. ^ Peter Schmitz: Trade and Industry of the City of Düsseldorf . In: Contributions to the history of the Lower Rhine . Volume 3, Düsseldorf 1888, p. 480 ( digitized version )
  4. ↑ Law Bulletin of the Grand Duchy of Berg, No. 16, 1811, p. 282 ff.
  5. ^ Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors (ed.): Düsseldorf in the year 1898. Festschrift for the participants in the 70th meeting of German natural scientists and Doctors . Verlag A. Bagel, Düsseldorf 1898, p. 53
  6. ↑ Cf. Napoleonsberg in the Hofgarten, Düsseldorf , photo by Julius Söhn , around 1900, Stadtmuseum Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf

Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 56.9 ″  N , 6 ° 46 ′ 36.9 ″  E