Tiergarten (park)

Coordinates: 52°30′50″N 13°21′25″E / 52.51389°N 13.35694°E / 52.51389; 13.35694
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other uses, see Tiergarten (disambiguation).
Tiergarten
Großer Tiergarten
Großer Tiergarten in the centre, with the narrow long Kleiner Tiergarten at the upper edge.
Map
TypeUrban park
LocationBerlin, Germany
Coordinates52°30′50″N 13°21′25″E / 52.51389°N 13.35694°E / 52.51389; 13.35694
Area210 hectares (520 acres)
WaterLandwehr Canal, Neuer See, Tiergartengewässer
Map
1km
0.6miles
Tiergarten
Tiergarten
Tiergarten, Berlin

The Tiergarten (German:

Englischer Garten
are larger.

History

16th century

Full aerial view of the Tiergarten

The beginnings of the Tiergarten can be traced back to 1527. It was founded as a hunting area for the

Elector of Brandenburg had wild animals placed within the Tiergarten, which was fenced off from the outside to prevent the creatures from escaping, and was the main hunting ground for the electors of Brandenburg
. This hobby, however, began to fade away as the city of Berlin began to expand and the hunting area shrank to accommodate the growth.

17th–18th centuries

A little bridge in the Tiergarten park, 1866.

Charlottenburg Palace. Der Große Stern, the central square of the Tiergarten, and Kurfürstenplatz, the electoral plaza, were added, with seven and eight boulevards respectively.[citation needed] This is seen as the beginning of a transformation in the Tiergarten, a movement from the king's personal hunting territory to a forest park designed for the people.[citation needed
]

Frederick Wilhelm I's son and successor,

revolutions of 1848, the park hosted the first assembly demanding the abolishment of the national censors.[citation needed
]

19th century

A park map of 1835 drawn by Peter Joseph Lenné
Two people in the Tiergarten, 1866.

At the end of the 18th century, Knobelsdorff's late-

bridleways
to be laid down. Several features became characteristic components of the Tiergarten. Wide-open grass lawns traversed by streams and clusters of trees, lakes with small islands, countless bridges like the Löwenbrücke, and a multitude of pathways became distinguishing features of the new garden.

Up until 1881, the Tiergarten was owned by the monarchy, and came under the direct control of the King and later the

William II, it was lined with statues of former Prussian royal figures of varying historical importance. The Prachtboulevard ("Magnificence Boulevard") was added in 1895 and became the area known as the Königsplatz, which would later become Platz der Republik
.

Beethoven-Haydn-Mozart Memorial
, is another example of how the Germans wanted to respect and honor the men and women who gave them a unique culture.

20th century

Under Nazi control

The

Welthauptstadt Germania", or World Capital Germania, was the idea the Nazis wanted to bring to fruition. The Tiergarten was to be a central location in the new city. The Charlottenburger Chaussee, today known as the Straße des 17. Juni
, was to be the central line between the east and west, and was widened from 27 metres (89 ft) to 53 metres (174 ft), the same width as the current street. The Berlin Victory Column was also moved to the Großer Stern, where it remains to this day.

The

Bellevue Palace in order to prevent further destruction. They were not recovered until 1993.[3]

After the war, the Tiergarten became part of the

British Occupation sector of West Berlin
. The area however underwent a sudden, violent change; much of the wooded area was felled and turned to firewood due to the shortage of coal, and the now empty fields were turned into temporary farmland by order of British troops. There were around 2,550 plots of land available for growing potatoes and vegetables. However, these two factors caused the once great forest to nearly disappear; only 700 trees survived out of over 200,000 that once lined the parkway, the bodies of water turned silty, every bridge was destroyed, the monuments lay on their sides and were badly damaged. Plans to fill the waterways with debris from the war were also suggested, but were prevented by the head of the Berlin Central Office of Environmental Planning, Reinhold Lingner.

In 1945, almost directly after the fall of Berlin, the occupying Soviets erected a Soviet War Memorial (Tiergarten) for the fallen soldiers of the Red Army on the north side of the current Straße des 17. Juni. Situated less than a mile away from the Reichstag, it was built at such short notice that it was located in the planned British sector. When the Berlin Wall went up around West Berlin in 1961, the monument became inaccessible to the people for whom it was built, although Soviet honour guards were allowed to be stationed at the monument, with approval from the British occupying forces.

Post-war restoration

On June 2, 1945, the Berlin Magistrate decided they would restore the Greater Tiergarten. The first suggestions came in 1946/47. Reinhold Lingner and Georg Pniower, Professor of Garden Design at

Berlin University, were the first to offer plans, but both were rejected during the division of Berlin by the Allied powers. Instead, they decided to follow the plans of the Tiergarten Director Willy Alverdes, whose plan seemed to be a more pragmatic approach: instead of rebuilding the park in a new fashion, Alverdes' plans depended on the existing design of the park. He wanted to establish a tranquil, spacious park where one could relax and recover. The Tiergarten was re-forested between 1949 and 1959. On March 17, 1949, the Lord Mayor Ernst Reuter planted the first tree, a linden, to signify the beginning of the restoration. West Germany took over the operation and sponsorship with about 250,000 young trees being delivered to the former capital from all over the Bundesrepublik, even being delivered via plane during the Berlin Blockade
. Alverdes' plan did away with the pre-existing baroque-styled structures in the park, claiming the style was not in keeping with the period. The combination of baroque and regional art was tossed out. Being a very natural park landscape, the Tiergarten was a very important large green space for rest and relaxation for the West Berliners, who were separated from the surrounding East German countryside by the Berlin Wall.

Several buildings have been added to the area surrounding the park, many of which were constructed by foreign architects. The

Eleanor Dulles as an American contribution to the Interbau
, an International Architecture Exhibition employed to exhibit new social, cultural, and ecological ideas in architecture.

Post-re-unification

The Tiergarten's culture began to stagnate until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. After the reunification of East and West Berlin in 1990, many of the outskirts of the park changed drastically. For instance, along the streets that border the southern boundary of the park, dilapidated embassy buildings that had stood for decades were reoccupied and others were rebuilt from the ground up, such as the Nordic embassies. On the northern border the new German Chancellery was built, along with office buildings for the everyday work of the delegates. The Reichstag was refurbished with a new, glass dome that has become a popular tourist attraction. Several overgrown areas that had been used for picnics and football were replaced with open spaces and grassy lawns that have added to the prestige of the park. Due to its status as a garden memorial of the city of Berlin, encroachment onto the Tiergarten from businesses and residents has been illegal since 1991.

A large tunnel, commissioned in 2006, has been built under the Tiergarten, allowing easy movement from north to south for motor vehicles, trams, and more recently S-Bahn trains. The original proposal for the tunnel was met with great opposition from environmentalists, who believed the vegetation would be damaged due to shifts in ground-water levels; in fact, the first plans for construction were denied by a court order.

Two memorial monuments are located towards the eastern end of the park—the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism, built 2008, and the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism, built 2012.

Facilities and attractions

  • The
    Berlin zoo
  • Monuments (Soviet War Memorial)
  • Gaslaternen-Freilichtmuseum Berlin - a permanent exhibition of historical gas lanterns
  • spaces suitable for picnics, barbecues, jogging, cycling, and field sports such as soccer
  • pedal-taxi rentals
  • a large playground on the park's southeastern corner, near Potsdamer Platz.[1]
  • During cold winters, it is occasionally possible to go ice-skating on some of the park's small ponds.[1]
  • English gardens

Geography

The park is located on the northern and central side of

Memorial to the Sinti and Roma victims of National Socialism and the central square of Potsdamer Platz
.

In the northerly neighbouring quarter of Moabit a much smaller park bears the same name, thus both are differentiated as Großer and Kleiner Tiergarten.

The Tiergarten has an area of around 210 hectares (520 acres), and after Tempelhofer Freiheit, it is the second biggest parkland in Berlin and the third biggest inner-city parkland in Germany.

Transport

The park is principally served by the

Berlin Tiergarten (situated at the western entrance on the Straße des 17. Juni) and Berlin Bellevue (lines S5 S7 S75). The N9 bus also serves the park.[1]

Gallery

Panorama of the park from the top of the Siegessäule: Straße des 17. Juni (east), Hofjägerallee, Straße des 17. Juni (west), Altonaer Straße, Spreeweg
  • The "Neue Partie" pond
    The "Neue Partie" pond
  • Natural environment at "Langgraswiese"
    Natural environment at "Langgraswiese"
  • A small river in autumn
    A small river in autumn
  • Winter view from Ahornsteig track
    Winter view from Ahornsteig track
  • Group of lions sculpture
    Group of lions sculpture
  • The Victory Column
    The Victory Column

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Tiergaten". berlin.de. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
  2. ^ Grésillon, B. (1999). Berlin, cultural metropolis: Changes in the cultural geography of Berlin since reunification. Ecumene, 6(3), 284–294. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44252060
  3. ^ "On the Desperate Edge of Now", from The Living Dead by Adam Curtis (BBC, 1995).

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Großer Tiergarten.
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