Otto Ludwig Sckell

Otto Ludwig Paul August Sckell (born January 17, 1861 in Ettersburg near Weimar, † April 18, 1948 in Weimar ), mostly Otto Sckell or Otto Ludwig Sckell , was a gardener in the Fürst-Pückler-Park Bad Muskau , later the court gardener of the Grand Ducal Saxon-Weimar and garden inspector of all parks in the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach. He came from the Sckell family of painters and gardeners , was the son of Julius Otto Franz Friedrich Sckell and the grandson of Johann Christian Sckell .

life and work

After an apprenticeship as a gardener in Potsdam , Otto Ludwig Sckell worked as a gardening assistant, then for four years as a gardener in Fürst-Pückler-Park Bad Muskau, then as head gardener in Bohemia .

Otto Ludwig Sckell took over the supervision of his gardens several decades after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's death: From 1890 he was appointed court gardener in Eisenach and Wilhelmsthal by Grand Duke Karl Alexander of Saxony-Weimar as successor to Hermann Jäger , and from 1900 in Weimar and Ettersburg. His appointment as head gardener took place in December 1905, with which he was entrusted with the supervision of all Saxony-Weimar gardens and parks. In 1926 he was appointed garden inspector to succeed Julius Hartwig . The position of a "State Garden Inspector" was created in 1919 as the central coordination point for all former court gardeners in the new state of Thuringia. Otto Ludwig Sckell held this position until 1928.

Many parks in Thuringia were restored and historically researched under Otto Ludwig Sckell. Goethe's gardens were still tended, major changes were not made, on the one hand out of piety towards the famous poet, on the other hand due to lack of money. The clearing and rejuvenation measures for the wooded area and its expansion - first begun by Eduard Petzold in Ilmpark since the death of Grand Duke Carl August in the second half of the 19th century - were continued in parts by Otto Ludwig Sckell, initially together with Julius Hartwig, around 1900 .

Otto Ludwig Sckell's work can be seen as the first step towards an institutionalization of the preservation of historic gardens . In 1902 he received the Albertus Cross for his services .

Written work

• Memories of the Old Belvedere , ca.1900.
• 200 years of Belvedere. A look back at his development with special consideration of his garden art , Weimar: Selbstverlag, 1928.

literature

• Karl Lohmeyer: Family table Die Sckell , in: Southwest German Gardens of Baroque and Romanticism with their domestic and foreign models based on the working material of the Saarland and Palatinate court gardener family the Koellner , (Saarbrücker Abhandlungen zur Südwestdeutschen Kunst und Kultur, Vol. 1), Saarbrücken, 1937, p. 16.
• Gert Gröning, Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn: Green biographies. Biographical handbook on landscape architecture of the 20th century in Germany , Berlin [u. a.]: Patzer, 1997, p. 360. ISBN 3-87617-089-3 .
• Die Gartenwelt , Vol. 32, 1928, H. 27, S. 380, Col. 2.
• Die Gartenkunst , Jg. 4, 1902, H. 6, S. 120, Col. 2.
• Die Gartenkunst , Vol. 2, 1900, H. 3, S. 60, Col. 2.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Death register StA Weimar, No. 540/1948