Castle Park (Braunschweig)

The palace garden around 1899

1905: View of the palace gardens from the north with the fountain (the palace in the background)

The palace garden (1829) with orangery

View of the Anna-Amalia-Platz with the paved part of the former palace park. The historic avenue ran behind the fountain.

The Thuringian Venus at its current location in the museum park

The love for the full moon at its current location in the theater park

The castle park , also called the castle garden , was a park in the Braunschweig city center and originally from around 1720 until the end of the Second World War it was part of the overall complex of the Braunschweig castle , which was demolished in 1960 as a result of war damage. After several protests and redesigning measures, the palace park was finally removed in the summer of 2005 in order to build a shopping center there and to be able to reconstruct the structure and facade of the residential palace.

Gardens of the Braunschweig Castle

The palace garden was built between 1720 and 1754 in the baroque style in the north-eastern area of the " gray courtyard ". The palace gardens included an artificially created grotto , cut hedges and an avenue . This spacious avenue ran along the Wendenmühlengraben from Steinweg to the old castle. From 1773 to 1788, at the request of the Duchess Augusta of Hanover , the wife of Duke Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, it was redesigned into an English garden and supplemented with a pavilion .

Remodeling after World War II

Immediate post-war years

Due to the extensive destruction of the Braunschweig city center (degree of destruction around 90%) by air raids during the Second World War, in which the castle was also badly damaged, as well as the plight of the population due to the food shortage in the post-war period ( hunger winter 1946/47 ), the area of the castle garden was used by the townspeople for many years to grow fruit and vegetables and to supply fuel.

Demolition of the castle and redesign of the park area

After the city council of Braunschweig, under the leadership of Martha Fuchs , passed the resolution with a majority of one vote in December 1959 to demolish the castle, this was implemented quickly on March 18, 1960 - amid protests from Braunschweig citizens. After the demolition work was completed, the redesign of the area and thus also of the former palace garden began, which finally resulted in the new "palace park" in 1963. In the same year the park was opened to the public for the first time. On July 25, 1969, a large open-air stone chess board with plastic figures measuring 60 to 80 centimeters was made available there.

The park in the 1970s

Due to the construction of an underground car park under the new palace park, the park was no longer accessible for a long time from 1971, as the ground was first excavated for the construction. The underground car park was provisionally opened on November 29, 1973. The park was redesigned between 1973 and 1974 according to plans by the architect Bofinger, and at the same time it was expanded to face Friesenstrasse. In the course of this redesign, a water basin was created in which four original Corinthian capitals of the castle portico columns were placed. A pavilion in the form of a glass pyramid was also built, in which a reading room of the Braunschweig Public Library was set up in 1974 . After completion, the palace park was reopened to the population on May 1st, 1974. On May 17, 1974, the new underground car park and the new pedestrian tunnel between the Damm pedestrian zone, Magniviertel and the palace gardens were officially opened.

A new east-west road connection should also be built for a long time. For this purpose, Langedammstrasse was widened, which was already connected to Waisenhausdamm in the west. A continuation of Langedammstrasse to the east was no longer implemented, and the new east-west connection had to be relocated further north due to the new construction of the Horten AG department store. A neo-Gothic school building, which should originally have given way to the connection to the east, was spared. Since the Langedammstrasse was now partially built on, the multi-lane Georg-Eckert-Strasse was laid further north parallel to the originally planned Langedammstrasse, which gave the castle park its typical floor plan between 1976 and 1978. Since then the park has had an area of 3.5 hectares .

Due to the traffic planning of the 1970s and the lack of pedestrian crossings, the widened Bohlweg created a barrier that made direct level access to the palace park much more difficult. With the addition of a dividing grille, pedestrians should even be completely prevented from crossing the streets. The park could only be reached from the dam through the Bohlweg tunnel. One can see these transformations today as an example of poor traffic and urban planning. All of these interventions were reversed in the 2000s.

The park in the 1980s and 1990s

In 1976 a study was commissioned to redesign the entire park. Some of the study by the Ungers architects from Cologne was implemented, but much remained unrealized. Among other things, it was suggested to erect the portico of the castle (of which many parts were preserved) or the also still existing Ackerhof portal in the castle park. On May 9, 1980, the bronze sculpture Die Stehende, Liebe zum Vollmond was put up by Professor Kurt Edzard, which was donated by the Braunschweig Lions Club . On October 7, 1981, the sculpture Thuringian Venus by Gerhard Marcks followed . The glass pavilion, which had not been used by the public library since 1985, was used for gastronomic purposes from 1986. In 1999 a new oak avenue was laid out on the north side of the palace park and the north-eastern part of the park was redesigned and renovated. There was also a new playground, and a new pool was created at the “Little House” of the State Theater . Originally, further redesigns should follow.

Various events have taken place in the castle park over the years and in irregular succession: For example, once a year after the certificates were handed out, there was a graduation party for students (“School's Out Party”) and activities from the “Braunschweiger Spielemeile”.

ECE project management and "Castle Arcades"

Due to its central location, the Schlosspark area has always been an attractive area in the middle of the city, in the immediate vicinity of the Braunschweig pedestrian zone, the Bohlweg / Damm tram junction and the Bohlweg, which is very important for the main traffic, which means that the area has repeatedly attracted investors' interest to use it as Use real estate location. In the 1990s, for example, there were plans to build a large cinema, but these were discarded in favor of another location ( Lange Straße ). But the desire to undo the demolition of the lock was also preserved in many cases and found material support in the local entrepreneur Richard Borek .

In 2002, ECE Projektmanagement GmbH & Co. KG became aware of the area and the city showed interest in this investor. Among other things, it stipulated the condition that the castle facade was to be reconstructed using the original parts that were still available, which was agreed. This gave the city the opportunity to have the palace facade rebuilt, for which there had previously been no investor.

In recent years, the city administration has increasingly neglected the park, the fountain was no longer in operation and the lease for the café in the glass pavilion was terminated, which made the park increasingly less attractive. In the course of the construction project, large parts of the park, such as the sunbathing area, were no longer open to the public due to archaeological excavations .

Referendum

In the course of a citizens' initiative to preserve the castle park 31,524 signatures were collected. These were handed over to the administration on December 19, 2003. The 24,028 counted valid signatures of Braunschweig citizens who were entitled to vote were recognized by the city administration as sufficient for a citizens' petition, but the petition itself was declared inadmissible. This was finally confirmed in the second instance by the Lüneburg Higher Administrative Court .

Decision for the "Castle Arcades"

A council majority (with a majority of one vote) from the CDU and FDP, led by Gert Hoffmann , finally voted for the ECE shopping center, the future “Castle Arcades”. On September 1, 2004, the city granted ECE project management the building permit.

The end of the park

On April 20, 2005, the entire park and the “Am Schlossgarten” car park were cordoned off with a site fence. The entire park inventory such as play equipment, sculptures, lamps and other decorative items were transferred to ECE; only the oaks planted in 1999 were replanted in the Westpark , a few kilometers away, along Madamenweg . The playground equipment from 1999, as well as the stone balls and other design objects were not preserved for the citizens.

On May 18, 2005, 255 trees and thus almost all of the trees in the castle park were felled during the breeding season, including trees that were over a hundred years old and which came from the time of the original castle garden. The "Schlosspark underground car park" was closed for several months and largely demolished. After the reopening, the underground car park was renamed “Tiefgarage Magni” (see Magniviertel ). At the corner of Georg-Eckert-Strasse and Magnitorwall, there were still a few trees in the castle park, which were finally felled in September 2006.

To compensate for the castle park, open spaces on the outskirts, which had been reserved for the Westpark for a long time and were leased to farmers, were converted into parking spaces. A playground and youth field with a sports facility was built there. The previous 3.5 hectare open space in the Schlosspark was finally sealed. The street Am Schloßgarten is still a reminder of the original park .

The eastern parts of the palace park that were not built on were paved and turned into Duchess Anna Amalia Square and St. Nicolai Square. In the northwest, the place at the knight's fountain was created. The plastic love for the full moon was repositioned in the theater park and the plastic Thuringian Venus came to the museum park.

literature

Silke Böhme, Nicole Palm (ed.): The park belongs to us . Braunschweig 2006, ISBN 3-926701-70-6

Web links

Commons : Braunschweiger Schlosspark - Collection of images, videos and audio files

52.263888888889 10.528611111111Coordinates: 52 ° 15 ′ 50 ″ N , 10 ° 31 ′ 43 ″ E