History of municipal parks

Despite numerous individual studies on municipal parks, which in Germany are often referred to as Volksparkanlagen, there is still no comprehensive work on this special category of public parks, which were established in various German cities from the beginning of the 20th century until the end of the Weimar Republic. The aim of the research project is to

 

  • to describe the type of "Volkspark" in a differentiated way by comparing various facilities and to analyze both the design, the usage program and the different contexts of justification that were used in political and professional debates for the establishment of such facilities;
  • to reflect in particular on the idea, which was emphasized at the time of their creation, that public parks could contribute to the formation of a specifically German identity;
  • to work out the influence of public parks from the 19th century and theoretical works of garden art from this period on the program of the Volksparkanlagen and to describe the specific difference between this type of park, which was described as "new" and "modern";
  • to work out the influence of foreign, particularly American and English, ideas on park planning;
  • analyze the impact of public parks on park planning after 1945 in East and West Germany;
  • to reflect on analogous considerations on public parks in other countries, such as China or Brazil, up to the present day.

 

Some of the results of this research project have already been publicly presented and published:

PublicationHennecke, Stefanie 2015: Volksparke today and tomorrow? On the future viability of Ludwig Lesser's public park idea. In: Die Gartenkunst, issue 1, 2015, pp. 165-172. publication on a lecture of the same namelectureat the conference "100 Jahre Hamburger Stadt- und Volkspark" on June 19-21, 2014 in Hamburg.

Lecture"People's park or garden show? Der Killesberg im Kontext der Entwicklung bürgerlicher Parkanlagen bis 1945", at the conference: "Gartenschau Gedenkstätte Gartendenkmal - 75 Jahre Höhenpark Killesberg" on September 18 and 19, 2014, organized by the Stadtarchiv Stuttgart.

PublicationHennecke, Stefanie; Geiger, Annette 2015: Der Park am Gleisdreieck: Ein moderner Volkspark?/Gleisdreieck Park: A modern Volkspark? In: Liechtenstein, Andra; Mameli, Flavia Alice (eds.): Gleisdreieck/Park Life Berlin. Bielefeld 2015, pp. 222-237.

PublicationHennecke, Stefanie 2014: Volkspark. In: Fischer, Hubertus (ed.): Shaping the future from landscape. Keywords on landscape architecture. CGL-Studies, Volume 17. Munich 2014. p. 253-257.

Online publication:Hennecke, Stefanie 2013: Schillerpark, Berlin An early modern public park in Berlin. In: Association of German Landscape Architects (ed.): 100 Years of Landscape Architecture. Built environment in the past and present. Online exhibition: http: //www.100-jahre-landschaftsarchitektur.de (Link to the article: http: //www.100-jahre-landschaftsarchitektur.de/ausstellung - epoche-1

Online publication: Hennecke , Stefanie 2013: Olympiapark, Munich A "user park" from 1972. In: Bund Deutscher Landschaftsarchitekten (ed.): 100 Jahre Landschaftsarchitektur. Built environment in the past and present. Online exhibition: http: //www.100-jahre-landschaftsarchitektur.de (Link to the article: http: //www.100-jahre-landschaftsarchitektur.de/ausstellung - epoche-4

Conference, lecture and publicationon the Munich Olympic Park: Stefanie Hennecke, Regine Keller, Juliane Schneegans (eds.) 2013: Democratic Green. Olympic Park Munich. Berlin.

Lecture:Stefanie Hennecke: From strolling to the everyday use and appropriation of urban open space. As part of the symposium "146 years of civic engagement. 219 years of green municipal duty". Organized by the German Society for Garden Art and Landscape Culture (DGGL) in Bremen, 9 September 2011.

the lecture was published under the following title:
Hennecke, Stefanie 2012: Der Park als politischer Raum - Ein Rückblick auf Nutzungskonzepte und Nutzungsgeschichten öffentlicher Parkanlagen. In: Stadt + Grün/Das Gartenamt, 61st volume, February 2012, pp. 7-12

Lecture:Stefanie Hennecke: German Ideologies of City and Nature: The Schiller Park in Berlin at the conference The Place of Natur in the City in Twentieth-Century Europe and North America, organized by the German Historical Institute, Washington D.C., USA, 1-3 December 2005.

the lecture was published under the following title:
Hennecke, Stefanie 2011: German Ideologies of City and Nature: The Creation and Reception of Schiller Park in Berlin. In: Brantz, Dorothee; Dümpelmann, Sonja (eds.): Greening the City, Urban Landscapes in the Twentieth Century, Charlottesville and London, University of Virginia Press, pp. 75-94.

Lecture: Stefanie Hennecke: Der Volkspark für die Gesundung von Geist und Körper - Das ideologische Spannungsfeld einer bürgerlichen Reformbewegung zwischen Emanzipation und Disziplinierung der 'Volksmassen' in der Rahmen der Tagung: Gärten und Parks als Lebens- und Erlebnisraum: Sozialgeschichtliche Aspekte der Gartenkunst in Früher Neuzeit und Moderne, organized by the Institute for Garden Art and Landscape Culture, Seminar für Kunstgeschichte der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, 1. June 1-3 , 2007 in Schloss Dyck.

the lecture was published under the following title:
Hennecke, Stefanie 2008: Der Volkspark für die Gesundung von Geist und Körper - Das ideologische Spannungsfeld einer bürgerlichen Reformbewegung zwischen Emanzipation und Disziplinierung des Volkes. In: Stefan Schweizer (ed.): Gärten und Parks als Lebens- und Erlebnisraum: Funktions- und nutzungsgeschichtliche Aspekte der Gartenkunst in Früher Neuzeit und Moderne. Worms, Wernersche Verlagsanstalt, pp. 151-165.