Wilhelm Benque

Wilhelm Benque

Friedrich Wilhelm Alexander Benque (born February 24, 1814 in Ludwigslust , † November 1, 1895 in Bremen ) was a German landscape gardener and garden architect.

Mecklenburg

The youngest son of a master tailor in Ludwigslust was allowed to complete an apprenticeship as a gardener with the Oberhof gardener Paul Schweer in the Ludwigslust Palace Park with his older brother Christian . The tuition was paid by the Mecklenburg Grand Duke Friedrich Franz I. In 1833 a grant from the sovereign enabled the horticultural improvement in Potsdam . From 1837, Benque was then part of Peter Joseph Lenné's staff in the expansion of the Schwerin palace gardens . With Lenné's recommendation, worked in the parks of Berlin and studied there from 1841–1842 at the University of Natural Sciences.

After his return to Mecklenburg , he submitted reform papers in 1843/1844. These included a plan to perfect the park in Ludwigslust , but also proposals for expanding fruit growing in Mecklenburg and contributions to combating the potato disease.

In political writings and from April 1, 1849 as editor of the democratic weekly newspaper "Mecklenburgische Dorfzeitung", he publicly showed his support for the 1848 revolution. In writings on community and land reform, he acknowledged the “basic truths of socialism”.

America

After a house search in Hagenow (August 30, 1849), the politicizing horticultural artist had to flee with what he was wearing and was wanted on a wanted list. He therefore emigrated to the USA via Hamburg and England and initially worked as a farmer in Iowa . On a temporary return to Germany, he married Christine Friederike Copmann in Blankenese on January 8, 1851 , but returned to the States in 1853 and settled in Hoboken near New York. Here I got to know the landscaped cemeteries, which were hardly common in Europe, through my own practice. He published his ideas of artistic park and garden design in a panel published together with Karl Gildemeister , in which he presented living in a natural, aesthetically arranged environment using his own designs for villa gardens. At the same time, the New York public was considering plans to create a large inner-city park . Benque did not participate in the competition for the overall design, but submitted a commented design out of competition, the concept of which provided for a harmonious transition from the urban development to the landscaped parts of the park, which was not taken into account in the execution.

From 1858 to 1860 Benque lithographed a number (according to his own statements, "the main part") of the chromolithographically printed color plates of the first volume of the unfinished second edition (so-called "Bien Edition") of John James Audubon's famous work on the American bird world.

Northern Germany

Benque stayed in America for twelve years, then returned to Germany. In 1862 he can be traced back to his brother in Lübeck, from 1864 he worked as an editor for the Kieler Zeitung . In addition, using his American experience in modern park and cemetery design, he drew up the plan for the design of the new south cemetery in Kiel , whose implementation he also oversaw from 1865 and which went down in cemetery history as the first German park cemetery.

When Benque won the competition for the Bremen Citizens' Park in 1866 , he moved to Bremen, was entrusted with the technical implementation of the project and actively drove the implementation forward with 170 employees.

Benque was versatile, but had personality traits that did not make it easier for the club's board to deal with him. “ Very self-confident, stubborn and quick-tempered, he was considered difficult if you didn't let him do it. In a mocking and argumentative way, he was happy to seek the public forum where he gave room to his journalistic inclinations ... ”(A. Röpcke). So in 1870 his expiring contract with the Bürgerparkverein was not extended. He was brought back six years later, in 1877 he was appointed park director, but in 1884 he was dismissed again. Even while he lived in Hamburg from 1886 to 1890, he repeatedly expressed himself with criticism and advice on the development of the park, which he regarded as his life's work.

Wilhelm Benque died on November 1, 1895 and was buried in the Waller cemetery he created in the Walle district of Bremen (grave location R 196).

Further orders

The generally recognized achievement of the conception of the Bremer Bürgerpark as a garden work of art made him known throughout Germany and earned him further public and private commissions, almost 50 gardens in and around Bremen alone. In accordance with his national reputation, he was also entrusted with the construction of the spa gardens in Bad Harzburg and tasks in Wiesbaden , Bückeburg, Karlshafen, Baden-Baden, Cologne and Dresden .

Honors

The merits of Benque were well recognized in Bremen. In 1895, on his 80th birthday, the Bremen Senate decided to honor his work for Bremen with a large wine donation from the Ratskeller . The Benquestraße and Benqueplatz in the district of Schwachhausen am Bürgerpark were in 1890 and 1899 named after him. The granite Benquestein was designed by Ernst Gorsemann and set up in the Bürgerpark in 1938.

Benquestein in the Bremer Bürgerpark

A painting and photographic portraits can be found in the Focke Museum Bremen.

family

Wilhelm Benque was the younger brother of Christian Benque (* 1811 in Ludwigslust; † 1883 in Lübeck), whose son was the photographer Franz Benque . Wilhelm Benque's son Franz Wilhelm Benque (1857–1912) was also a photographer and for a time (1886–1889) maintained the Benque photo studio in Hamburg on Neuer Wall.

According to a newspaper report ( General-Anzeiger für Hamburg-Altona of November 6, 1895, under Local , page 2) the remains were cremated in the crematorium of the Ohlsdorf cemetery as the 134th cremation.

Parks designed by Benque (selection)

• Kiel, Südfriedhof, 1866–1867
• Bremer Bürgerpark , 1866–1870
• Bad Harzburg facilities around the spa and lodging house, 1874
• Knoops Park in Lesum (around 1871)
• Waller Friedhof (1875–1890), 29  ha
• Riensberger Friedhof (inaugurated in 1875)
• Südfriedhof (Kiel) (inaugurated April 30, 1869)
• Bremerhaven cemetery in Wulsdorf , (designed 1870/1871)
• Senator Gerhard Caesar's country home , landscape park in Oberneuland , Oberneulander Landstrasse 70
• Dresden, Volkspark in the Dresdner Heide, 1894

Fonts

• Park comparisons in: Hamburger Garten- und Blumenzeitung , Norbert Kittler, Hamburg, No. 39, 1883, pp. 214-217 f.
• For more titles and newspaper articles see Röpcke, 1998, p. 126 and Röpcke, 1999, p. 47.

literature

• Eduard Gildemeister: Benque, Wilhelm , in: Bremische Biographie des 19. Jahrhundert, Bremen 1912, pp. 26–28.
• Günter Reinsch: The Bremer Bürgerpark - 125 years , in: Yearbook of Wittheit zu Bremen, vol. 32, 1991, p. 91 ff.
• Günter Reinsch: Benque, Wilhelm , in: Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon, Vol. 9, Leipzig and Munich 1994, p. 142.
• Günter Reinsch: The "American Years" Wilhelm Benques. Edited from the estate and introduced by Andreas Röpcke. in: Mecklenburgische Jahrbücher, 132nd volume, 2017, pp. 199–221.
• Andreas Röpcke: Benque , in: Biographisches Lexikon für Mecklenburg, Vol. 2, Rostock 1999, pp. 43–47.
• Andreas Röpcke: Wilhelm Benque's way of life , in: Contributions to the history of Bremen. Festschrift Hartmut Müller. Publications from the State Archives of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, Volume 62, 1998, pp. 126–149.

Web links

• Literature about Wilhelm Benque in the state bibliography MV
• Short biography at www.buergerpark-bremen.de , last accessed on December 23, 2010.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Reinsch, 1994, p. 142.
2. ↑ W. Benque: Comments on the beautification plan for the area around the palace, including the palace gardens in Ludwigsburg , Schwerin 1844. - Benque's garden plans for Ludwigslust are preserved in the Schwerin state archives and in the Sanssouci planning chamber.
3. ↑ W. Benque: Meckelenburgs Obstbau, how it is and how it can be improved. , Parchim and Ludwigslust 1844. - W. Benque: Harmonious voices over fruit growing , Parchim and Ludwigsburg 1844.
4. ↑ Materials on Eliminating the Harmful Influence of Potato Disease. Presented to his compatriots for the New Year by Wilhelm Benque , Schwerin 1847.
5. ^ ^{A b} Martin Stolzenau: Wilhelm Benque: Revolutionary and garden artist. SVZ, February 24, 2014, Mecklenburg-Magazin p. 27.
6. ^ Wilhelm Benque: '' The municipal division of Mecklenburgs, Schwerin 1849. Ders .: The progressive tax as a folder in the internal state constitution. Schwerin 1849.
7. ↑ Reinsch, p. 204.
8. ^ Wilhelm Benque and Karl Gildemeister: Album of Villa Architecture and Landscape Gardening, part I., New York 1856.
9. ↑ Reinsch, 2017, pp. 216–219.
10. ↑ Reinsch, 2017, pp. 219–220.
11. ↑ Barbara Leisner: Aestheticization and Representation. The new park cemeteries at the end of the 19th century. In: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Friedhof und Denkmal, Museum für Sepulkralkultur (Ed.): Space for the dead. Braunschweig 2003, ISBN 3-87815-174-8 . - Benques Kiel cemetery plans are kept in the Kiel city archive.
12. ↑ Some plans for the Bremer Bürgerpark are in the Focke Museum Bremen.
13. ↑ W. Benque: Citizens Park Considerations, Bremen 1875.