City Park Lübeck
The Lübeck City Park is a park in the Lübeck district of St. Gertrud .
location
The city park is located in the middle of the residential areas east of Travemünder Allee , about 750 meters away from the castle gate . It is limited to the north by Rathenaustraße , to the east by Curtiusstraße and Krügerstraße , to the west by Parkstraße and to the south by Roeckstraße .
investment
The 120,000 square meter park is characterized by loosely distributed groups of trees and trees, surrounded by lawns that are accessed by a network of curved paths. An irregular lake forms its center; a smaller second lake and the so-called frog prince pond , which is surrounded by a circular grotto, are located in the southern half. The sculpture of the frog prince by the sculptor Otto Mantzel was not installed until 1930.
history
The area of the later city park was originally taken by the Galgenbrook , a swampy wetland that emerged from a silted-up bay in the southern Wakenitz . It took its name after the gallows built near today's Travemünder Allee in the middle of the 15th century ; the Low German part of the name -brook (fraction) refers to the wetland character. With the exception of a small part that was owned by the Heiligen-Geist-Hospital , the Galgenbrookwiesen, which were economically hardly usable and largely worthless, were municipal property.
When the Wakenitz flooded or when heavy rains fell, the origin of the Galgenbrook became noticeable in a body of water, as the area and its surroundings were then shaped by water rising to the surface. The growth of the suburb of St. Jürgen - especially after the closing of the gate in 1864, which gave the other Lübeck suburbs a boost in development - was greatly hampered by these conditions, the residents complained about flooded properties and cellars. At the beginning of 1864, the city's building director Eduard Carl Müller proposed that the Galgenbrook be drained through ditches and sluices into the Trave , but the Finance Department rejected it as too expensive. In 1877 the Senate decided in favor of the inexpensive but less effective drainage into the Wakenitz. Increased protests by residents finally led to the decision in 1883 to drain the meadows towards the Trave in accordance with the plan of 1864 by building the Galgenbrooksiel and to dry them out for further use.
As early as 1880, a draft of a preliminary development plan for the suburb of St. Gertrud was drawn up and forwarded to the Technical Association of Lübeck in November of that year with a request for a review and comment. The task was taken over by a commission chaired by the architect Heinrich Friedrich Theodor Sartori . In 1882, the engineer Johann Hermann Vering , who was a member of this commission and who was also involved in the construction of the northern section of the Elbe-Lübeck Canal, suggested adding a public park in place of the Galgenbrookwiesen. He saw the Bremer Bürgerpark, which had existed since 1866, as a model .
Vering's suggestions were well received in the Technical Association, and Sartori worked out a plan for the park, which he presented to the public in the Lübeckische Blätter in March 1883 . His concept, inspired by the Bürgerpark in Bremen, envisaged an almost butterfly-shaped facility with an area of around 200,000 square meters. A large basin with a fountain was to form the middle section, and the wing areas with landscape parks would connect to the north and south. An additional 5000 square meter botanical garden with signposted foreign trees was planned on the north-eastern edge .
Sartori's plan was not implemented, but the citizens of Lübeck took up the basic idea again in 1891 and asked the Senate to create a park on the now drained Galgenbrook as a measure to create jobs. The Senate commissioned the city gardener Metaphius Theodor August Langenbuch to draw up the necessary plans, which he presented in September 1892. His concept envisaged a 180,000 square meter facility that was smaller, but considerably less strongly and strictly structured than the Sartoris project. Langenbuch estimated the construction costs as a protection against flooding at 294,000 marks , partly because of the indispensable fillings to raise the area, which is still almost at the level of the Wakenitz mirror . Mayor Heinrich Theodor Behn considered this financial burden unsustainable, and the Senate decided in October not to build the park.
Nevertheless, a possible design of the site was still considered and preparatory measures began. In order to increase the area, the Galgenbrook was designated as a stripping place for building rubble and other excavated earth. In 1895 the gardens at the Burgtor had to be removed for the construction of the Elbe-Lübeck Canal without an existing replacement. For this reason, the citizens turned again to the Senate in 1896 and renewed their wish to create a park on Galgenbrook. The Senate commissioned the building deputation, which included building director Gustav Schumann , Stadtgärtner Langenbuch and the architect Sartori, to develop a new project. The plan was presented in October 1897 and approved by the Senate and the city council in December, which now decided to build the park.
The new plan developed by Langenbuch provided for a facility that had been reduced again to 120,000 square meters, the main features of which still exist today. Before the start of construction, a plot of land measuring 254 square meters had to be purchased, which was the only part of the required land that was not owned by the city, but belonged to the Holy Spirit Hospital; This did not pose a problem, however, since the head of the hospital, Senator Heinrich Klug , was also chairman of the building deputation. The hospital gave the town the small strip of land free of charge. The actual work began in February 1898 with the filling and modeling of the site.
At the end of 1899 the northern half of the park was completed and work on the southern part began; Since considerably more extensive earth movements were necessary here, they required significantly greater effort. In contrast to the plan from 1897, a second, smaller pond was created in the southern area to liven up the design. The city park was opened on September 21, 1902. In 1903 the entire complex was completed.
In order to give the park an attractive appearance as quickly as possible, fast-growing trees such as chestnuts , willows and poplars were mixed with slow-growing, more permanent species such as oak and linden . Based on the idea of an attached botanical garden, developed in 1883, only American tree species were planted in the northeastern area and, in addition, unusual trees were distributed throughout the park.
The city of Lübeck understood the city park as a jewelry park, the use of which was subject to strict rules. The facilities should only be viewed from the paths. As early as 1898, the building deputation rejected a request to open the frozen pond as an ice rink for children in the winter months. In 1906 the city council rejected the application to allow children's games on lawns. Complaints about dog owners who let their animals bathe in the pond and children who stepped on the lawn without permission led to an increased police presence in the city park in 1907, including by mounted police . Entering the lawn was strictly forbidden until the early 1970s and was prevented by a full-time parking attendant who could call in the police in the event of a violation.
The city gardener Harry Maasz's plan, expressed in 1912, to redesign the park through considerable changes to the network of paths, planting and water areas, was not approved by the city because, in the opinion of the citizens' committee, it was an unnecessary intervention based solely on Maasz's taste . Funds were only granted for essential work on the planting; thus the original park design has largely been preserved to this day.
After the Second World War , the city park was divided into garden areas for growing food. Following the currency reform , the park was restored, including numerous new plantings. The crocuses and carnations on the lawns, which determine the appearance of the park today in spring, go back to that time and do not correspond to Langenbuch's original garden design concept.
The extension of the park to the banks of the Wakenitz, which the garden and cemetery office identified in 1964 as an important step to increase its importance and to improve horticultural and urban planning , could never be implemented; the necessary purchase of the properties at Roeckstrasse 30-42, which occupy the river bank, would not be financially viable for the city of Lübeck.
Monuments in the city park
In recognition of Langenbuch's merits, immediately after the city gardener's death in 1907, the Senate decided to honor him with a monument in the city park. To the west of the central pond, a stone stele was erected in the same year, bearing the inscription Dem Andenken des Stadtgärtner M. Langenbuch. 1879-1907. The years do not denote the dates of life, but the time in the employment relationship in Lübeck. It is the only public monument to a person in the city's service.
In addition, there are a number of other monuments in the park, including a stele for Fritz Reuter on the Reuter Oak and three memorial trees set by Langenbuch in honor of the mayors Behn, Brehmer and Klug , which, however, were not given plaques and their location is not today is more noticeable.
Individual trees are now registered natural monuments of the city of Lübeck .
literature
- Uwe Müller: St. Gertrud . (Small booklets on city history, edited by the archive of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck , No. 2) Lübeck 1986. ISBN 3-7950-3300-4 .
- Michael Hundt: From the swampy meadow to the ornament of the city. The history of the development of the city park in Lübeck and its peripheral development . In: Journal of the Association for Lübeck History and Archeology , Volume 83. Verlag Schmidt-Römhild , Lübeck 2003
- Jan Zimmermann : St. Gertrud 1860-1945. A photographic foray. Bremen 2007 ISBN 978-3-86108-891-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 53 ° 52 ′ 41.8 " N , 10 ° 42 ′ 12.9" E