Leopold Karl Theodor Froebel

Leopold Karl Theodor Fröbel (born July 11 or 31, 1810 in Griesheim near Arnstadt ; † October 3, 1893 in Zurich ) was a Swiss art gardener , landscape architect , plant breeder and founder of a respected horticultural company in Zurich, the first private commercial gardening company in Switzerland.

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Theodor Fröbel was born as the fourth son of pastor Johann Michael Christoph Fröbel in Griesheim near Arnstadt. One of his brothers was the mineralogist Karl Ferdinand Julius Froebel . In his youth, Theodor Froebel was able to pursue his interests in plant breeding in the large parish garden, which is filled with rare fruit varieties. After the death of his father, he was also raised by his uncle Friedrich Froebel .

During his training and hiking time, he worked in various botanical gardens (including Göttingen, Eisenach, Munich and Weimar). In the royal gardens of Sanssouci he was also able to learn from the well-known garden architect Peter Joseph Lenné .

Two of his brothers worked in Zurich, where he was employed as a university gardener in 1834 and his first task was to create the new public botanical garden "Zur Katz" . In order to improve his low income, the university management allowed him to grow and sell plants in addition to his other professional activities. In 1835 he and Heinrich Würth founded the first commercial gardening company in Switzerland, Fröbel & Würth. Due to the economic success he gave up the job as a university gardener in 1841. His partner emigrated and Fröbel ran the enlarged company Fröbel & Cie. since 1841 as sole owner at a new address.

After the city fortifications had been abandoned, many rich Zurich families tried to find elegant villas in the area. Fröbel then often designed the associated large garden, including for example the garden for the Wesendonck family , today's Rieterpark . In addition, there were orders from the cities of Zurich ( Stadelhofer-Anlage , Sihlhölzli , public system at the Stadthaus Zurich ), Cham ( Villettepark ) and Winterthur, as well as the redesign of existing gardens (Park des Muraltengut ).

In keeping with the style of the time, Froebel laid out most of the gardens as landscape gardens with curved paths and asymmetrically arranged shrubs and trees. In contrast to the usual design patterns, he tried to include the existing landscape as much as possible and to avoid major changes in the soil. However, his early designs also correspond to the symmetrical, "French" style that he had got to know from Lenné.

In addition to landscape gardening and commercial gardening, Fröbel also cultivated plants. Despite the still incomplete knowledge of heredity, he was quite successful with his crossbreeds. The architect Peter Behrens visited him frequently because of the variants of the Christmas roses , some of which were named after his (Froebel's) relatives . His breeding successes also included various varieties of delphinium , Japanese quince , its various clematis and Ceanothus varieties, the Deutzia crenata candidissma 'Plena' and variants of the occidental tree of life . He had grown special silver linden trees for Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse .

Froebel was married to Berta Amalia Hegetschweiler, the daughter of the botanist Johannes Jacob Hegetschweiler . His son Otto Karl Fröbel joined the company in 1865, which gave Theodor Fröbel more time for plant cultivation and the recognized good apprenticeship training. In 1890 he finally transferred the company to his son Otto, who ran it for three years together with Evariste Mertens and then on his own. Theodor Froebel continued to work in the company until his death.

Works

• Old Botanical Garden Zurich (in the city center)
• Rieterpark , Zurich
• Villettepark, Cham ZG
• Public facility at the Zurich city hall
• Stadelhofer facility / Stadelhoferplatz, Zurich
• Sihlhölzli plant, Zurich
• Park des Muraltengut , Zurich
• Garden of the Villa Martinsburg

Plant breeding

• various Christmas roses (Dora Froebel, Gertrud Froebel, Robert Froebel)
• 18 different varieties of delphinium
• Clematis varieties
• Ceanothus varieties
• Varieties of Japanese ornamental quince
• Thuja occidentalis 'Froebeli', Thuja occidentalis 'Bodmeri'

literature

• Andrea Weibel: Froebel, Theodor. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Claudia Moll: Theodor & Otto Froebel. Garden culture in Zurich in the 19th century . gta Verlag, Zurich 2019, ISBN 978-3-85676-386-2

Web links

• Biography of Theodor Froebel on religio.de
• Froebel, Theodor (1810–1893) and Otto (1844–1906), Otto Froebel's heirs Robert Froebel (1878–1966) on gta.arch.ethz.ch
• Cordelia Fankhauser: Zurich parks and gardens - Froebels? Who are the Froebels ??? on srf.ch

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1. ↑ The Architectural Lexicon of Switzerland and the Historical Lexicon of Switzerland contradict each other here.
2. ↑ Rieterpark ( Memento of the original dated October 6, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Stadelhofer plant in parks in the city of Zurich on stadt-zuerich.ch
4. ^ Villette Park in Cham