Park Sankt Georgen
The historic park of the Philosophical-Theological University of Sankt Georgen is an approximately 8-hectare green area on the south-eastern outskirts of Frankfurt am Main in the Sachsenhausen district , between Offenbacher Landstrasse and Goldbergweg. More than a thousand different trees grow on the site, gathered from all continents and labeled like in a botanical garden .
History and park concept
The north-western part of today's park was acquired in 1840 by the banker Georg von Saint-George (1782–1863), who commissioned Sebastian Rinz , the planner of the Frankfurt ramparts, to transform the original rural ornamental garden into an English garden . Saint-George, but especially his eldest daughter Catharina Elisabeth Grunelius from 1863, expanded the property through acquisitions to Balduinstrasse and Goldbergweg. They expanded the area into a country estate, built a classicist garden house in 1843, which Grunelius called “Villa St. Georgen”, and from 1868–1870 the “Lindenhaus” and various farm buildings around where the university buildings are today. In 1875, at the highest point of the site, in the newly acquired southern part of the park, a neoclassical tea house planned by Rinz's grandson Andreas Weber was built, in which there is now a statue of the Virgin Mary ( Sedes sapientiae ). In 1896, Franz von Hoven designed the entrance with a representative wrought-iron gate.
In 1925 the Low German Province of the Jesuits acquired the property in order to build a Philosophical-Theological College, which was initially housed in the existing buildings. In 1928–1934 the seminar building was erected next to the Lindenhaus, so that the buildings now stretched over almost the entire width of the park along Offenbacher Landstrasse. All buildings were destroyed in the Second World War. 1945–1963 only the west-east wing of the building was rebuilt, but not the free-standing Grunelius villa. The central, original part of the old landscape park was preserved, but the western, southern and eastern peripheral areas were laid out as a kitchen garden for fruit and vegetables, and various sports fields were added. The Jesuit priest and zoology professor Rainer Koltermann (1931-2009) took care of the maintenance of the park and added trees from all continents to the old trees.
A major cut in the park substance was the sale of around 2 hectares of sports and kitchen garden space in the southeast of the facility in the 1980s to finance the expansion of the Philosophical-Theological University. The residential area " Alfred-Delp -Siedlung" ( Oberrad ) was laid out on this area . Since then, however, the previous cultivation areas have been abandoned and reintegrated into the park concept. In these marginal areas there is now a way of the cross by Franziska Lenz-Gerharz as well as the viewing gardens with young trees from Japan, China and North America. The demolition and the scaled-down construction of the university building in 2004 also helped to reconnect the northern part of the park with the central part in terms of garden architecture. Since then, the park, which is now tended by external horticultural companies, can again be viewed from Offenbacher Landstrasse.
Location and opening times
The park is enclosed and only accessible through the main gate to the university at Offenbacher Landstrasse 224. The private park is open to visitors daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Admission is free.
swell
- ↑ Werner Löser: The Sankt Georgener Kreuzweg . Website of the PTH Sankt Georgen. Retrieved November 24, 2013.
literature
- Stephanie Geiger: The park of the Philosophical-Theological University of Sankt Georgen . In: FAZ . No. 136 , June 15, 2002, pp. 92 ( sankt-georgen.de [accessed on July 21, 2018]).
- Sabine Hock , Barbara Vogt: A little piece of paradise. The park of Sankt Georgen . Philosophical-Theological University Sankt Georgen eV, Frankfurt am Main September 2013 (brochure with park plan, 18 pages).
- Werner Löser: Sankt Georgen 1926 to 1951 . Philosophical-Theological University Sankt Georgen eV, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-00-007636-0 .
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 5 ′ 51 ″ N , 8 ° 42 ′ 45 ″ E