Richard Thieme

Richard Thieme (born July 23, 1876 in Berlin ; † April 30, 1948 there ) was a German garden architect. From 1903 to 1945 he headed the Berlin-Wilmersdorfer garden administration and designed most of the public green spaces in the district that were built during this period. In addition to Fritz Encke , he was the first garden artist in Berlin and the surrounding area in 1906 to turn to the modern style, away from landscaped park designs and mere decorative places to facilities that were used by the population for their stay and practical use. He also broke new ground in the use of plants by using perennials in public green spaces as early as 1910 .

Life

Education and early works

Thieme learned from court gardener Eduard II. Nietner in the Charlottenburg palace garden and attended the pomological institute in Proskau in Silesia . On his subsequent years of traveling he came to Kiel , Innsbruck and London , Weimar and Klein Glienicke .

The neighboring rich communities of Schöneberg, Deutsch-Wilmersdorf, Friedenau and Charlottenburg experienced rapid development and unprecedented construction activity between 1900 and 1914 and competed with each other in the creation of trend-setting public green spaces. On April 15, 1903, Wilmersdorf hired Thieme as a community head gardener (from 1906 city head gardener).

He began with the execution of designs by Hermann Geitner . His first own designs were for Preußenplatz , Prager Platz , Rankeplatz (since 2012: Friedrich-Hollaender-Platz ), Hohenzollernplatz and Ludwigkirchplatz . In 1905 he already had 26 systems to work on.

Commitment to modernity

Garden plan for Platz D., the later Prussian Park

Gradually Thieme turned from the eclectic garden art of the Lenné - Meyer School to the modern one of the Berlin Secession . His first Hohenzollernplatz and Prager Platz from 1904 are still pure jewelery places. With the Preußenplatz (also 1904) and the Ludwigkirchplatz (1906) he created places to stay, in the case of the Preußenplatz also for children. The Preußenplatz, however, was still kept landscaped .

In 1906 Wilmersdorf received the longed-for city rights. With the Olivaer Platz in 1906, Thieme opted for the strict geometric style, which he has hardly abandoned since then. At that time, Olivaer Platz was considered the most modern square in the Berlin area. In 1909, Thieme and town planning inspector Paul Nitze took part in the competition for Berlin's south-west cemetery in Stahnsdorf and won first prize. In 1912, Hohenzollernplatz was redesigned from a purely decorative area to a facility that focused on use.

The Volkspark Wilmersdorf, which was designed in 1911 at the latest and started in 1913, looks like a throwback to the 19th century in some areas. However, the shape of the terrain in large parts did not allow anything other than landscaping.

In recognition of his services, Thieme was appointed gardening inspector in early 1914.

Between the wars

After serving in the war from 1915 to 1918, Thieme returned to the Wilmersdorf administration. When it was incorporated into Berlin in 1920, he received the title of district garden director. His area of ​​responsibility expanded to include the new districts of Grunewald and Schmargendorf .

This was followed by the redesign of the Prussian Park (1920), in which the focus was now on the use, landscape and geometric shapes were integrated, whereby the symmetry clearly retained the upper hand.

Other noteworthy new Thiemes facilities are Flinsberger Platz, Kissinger Platz, Laubenheimer, Kolberger and Hochmeisterplatz . "In his simple and natural way," says von Thieme, "he accomplished all these great achievements without making much of himself."

1929–1931 Thieme designed the bear settlement on Tempelhofer Oberlandstrasse, which is now protected as a garden monument . After 1933 he seems to have been marginalized and had to carry out the National Socialists' requirements, especially when, after a long vacancy, on December 15, 1935, Josef Pertl became garden director in Berlin. The creation of sports fields instead of the lake in the central part of the Volkspark may have been contrary to Thiemes' intentions.

In 1941 Thieme was 65 years old, but he was still working in April 1943. The date of his leaving the service is not yet known. In 1946 his successor Wilhelm Riemann was already in office. Thieme was buried in the urn grove of the Wilmersdorfer Friedhof in Wilmersdorf, which he himself laid out . The grave no longer exists.

literature

• Clemens Alexander Wimmer : Richard Thieme: garden director of Wilmersdorf (1876-1948): overview of works . District Office Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Environment Office, 2002.
• Clemens Alexander Wimmer: The town squares of the Wilmersdorfer garden director Richard Thieme (1876–1948) . In: Mitteilungen des Verein für die Geschichte Berlins , 104 (2008), pp. 114–124, 105 (2009), pp. 150–160.

Web links

• Biography on the website of the district office