| Johannapark | |
|---|---|
 Johannapark in July 2009 | |
 | |
| Type | Urban park |
| Location | Leipzig, Saxony, Germany |
| Area | 11 ha (27 acres) |
| Created | 1863 |
| Open | all year round |
The Johannapark is an 11 hectares (27 acres) park near the city center in Leipzig. In the southwest it merges seamlessly into the Clara Zetkin Park and together with it and the Palmengarten forms a large park landscape that continues in the north and south in the Leipzig Auenwald. [1]
The park is located in the Westvorstadt area of Leipzig, in the borough of Leipzig-Mitte. It is framed to the north-west by Ferdinand-Lassalle-Strasse, to the north-east by Paul-Gerhardt-Weg and Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse, to the south by Karl-Tauchnitz-Strasse and to the south-west by Edvard-Grieg-Allee. Adjacent residential areas are the Bachviertel, the inner Westvorstadt and the Musikviertel. [2]
The Johannapark was created between 1858 and 1863 by the Leipzig entrepreneur and banker Wilhelm Theodor Seyfferth (1807-1881) [3] at his own expense and later donated to the city. He wanted to commemorate his daughter Johanna Natalie Schulz, who died at the age of 21. [4] According to tradition, she was broken when, according to her father's wishes, she had to marry the unloved Dr. Gustav Schulz. [5] Full of remorse, her father thought of leaving something to posterity that would have been in her interest:
"The idea of establishing a foundation from a capital that had been earmarked for my deceased daughter, which would not only perpetuate her name, but also the prevailing direction of her character 'to make others happy', prompted me to accept to buy the meadow of the wife of Professor Schwägrichen at the Kuhstrang. It is my intention to turn it into a park and to call it Johannapark."
— Wilhelm Theodor Seyfferth, from the letter to the Leipzig Council in 1863
Seyfferth acquired the Martorff meadow [6] on the banks of the Pleiße [7] and some adjoining areas and let them convert into a park in the style of English landscape gardens according to plans by Peter Joseph Lenné (1789–1866). [8] The park was laid out by the Leipzig council gardener Otto Wittenberg (1834–1918). As is usual with Lenné, many exotic tree species were planted, giving the park the character of a botanical garden in places. A pond with a small island and two bridges was created in the center of the park. [5]
With Seyfferth's death in 1881, the park passed to the city of Leipzig in his will and testament, with the condition that the area should never be built over. [5] It was again enlarged to a floor area of eight hectares (20 acres). With the construction of the Lutherkirche between 1884 and 1887, an architectural accent was set in the neo-Gothic style. [9] [10] The park came to its present dimensions by merging it with the gardens and grounds of some of the buildings destroyed in World War II.
In 1955, the Johannapark was combined with the neighboring Albertpark, the Scheibenholzpark and the Palmengarten under the name "Clara Zetkin" Central Culture Park. Since April 2011, the park has returned to its old name, Johannapark. [11]
In 1896 the city erected the Seyfferth monument in the park for the donor. Inscription on the base: "To the donor of the Johannapark the grateful city". The pedestal is by Hugo Licht (1841-1923), the marble bust by Melchior zur Strassen (1832-1896). A wall tomb of the Seyfferth family is located outside the choir of the Lutherkirche. [9] The 1897 Leipzig memorial to Chancellor Bismarck by Adolf Lehnert (1862-1948) and Josef Mágr (1861-1924) was destroyed in 1946. In 1967, the Clara Zetkin memorial by the sculptor Walter Arnold (1909-1979) was erected on the same site to mark her 110th birthday. [12] In 1996, the Leipzig entrepreneur Walter Cramer (1886-1944), who was involved in the failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) on 20 July 1944, was honored here with a memorial by the city of Leipzig. The stele made of black granite and green Saxon serpentinite is the work of the sculptor Klaus Friedrich Messerschmidt (* 1945). [13]
Opposite the park, there is the art museum Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst.
Leipzig is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the eighth-largest city in Germany and is part of the Central German Metropolitan Region. The name of the city is usually interpreted as a Slavic term meaning place of linden trees, in line with many other Slavic placenames in the region.
Clara Zetkin was a German Marxist theorist, communist activist, and advocate for women's rights.
Peter Joseph Lenné was a Prussian gardener and landscape architect. As director general of the Royal Prussian palaces and parks in Potsdam and Berlin, his work shaped the development of 19th-century German garden design in the Neoclassical style. Laid out according to the principles of the English landscape garden, his parks are now World Heritage Sites.
Markkleeberg is an affluent suburb of Leipzig, located in the Leipzig district of the Free State of Saxony, Germany. The river Pleiße runs through the city, which borders Leipzig to the north and to the west.
Goerdelerring is a street and major tram interchange station in Leipzig, Germany. It is named after Carl Friedrich Goerdeler.
Waldstraßenviertel, is a neighbourhood in the north west of Leipzig's borough Mitte in Saxony, Germany. It is considered one of the largest complete areas of Gründerzeit buildings in Europe and is therefore considered of important cultural and heritage status. Many of its buildings are therefore protected or listed.
Neurossgarten was a quarter of northwestern Königsberg, Germany. Its territory is now part of Kaliningrad, Russia.
Nasser Garten or Nassengarten was a quarter of Königsberg, Germany, located southwest of the city center. Its territory is now part of the Moskovsky District of Kaliningrad, Russia.
The Palmengarten is a park in Leipzig-Lindenau. It covers a surface of 22.5 hectares.
Roswitha Trexler is a German operatic soprano and mezzo-soprano who became internationally known especially as an interpreter of the music of Hans Eisler and for her commitment to avantgarde vocal music.
Hubert Hans Ritter was a German architect, urban planner and building official.
From 1959 to 1989, the city of Leipzig awarded the Kunstpreis der Stadt Leipzig, which was given for outstanding merits in the artistic field to persons who promoted the reputation of the city beyond the region: architects, visual artists, composers, musicians, singers, actors and writers as well as literary and art critics.
The Inner City Ring Road in Leipzig in the district of Mitte is the ring road around Leipzig's city centre. It encloses the just 0.7 km2 (0.27 sq mi) large area of the old town without the former Vorstadts.
Leipzig-Mitte is one of ten boroughs (Stadtbezirke) of Leipzig, located in the center of the city. It includes numerous architectural monuments. Most of them are located in the subdivision "Zentrum", which is sited inside the Inner City Ring Road and the Promenadenring:
The Clara-Zetkin-Park is a park in Leipzig. From 1955 until 2011 it was Leipzig's largest park with an area of 125 hectares and was called Zentraler Kulturpark Clara Zetkin. The name was changed in 2011 and since then the Johannapark and the Palmengarten have officially been considered independent parks.
The Promenadenring Leipzig is the oldest municipal landscape park in Germany and one of the most important garden and cultural monuments in the city. The term is also used as a synonym for Leipzig's inner city ring road, a traffic facility that is connected to the green spaces of the Promenadenring. Like the inner city ring road, the promenade ring is about 3.6 kilometers long (2.24 mi.).
Karl-Heine-Strasse is a radial road in the west of Leipzig marking the boundary between the current localities of Leipzig-Plagwitz and Leipzig-Lindenau . 2.01 km (1.2 mi) long, it is named after the industrialist Karl Heine.
Grimmaische Strasse is a street in Leipzig, borough Leipzig-Mitte, and connects the marketplace with Augustusplatz. It was named in 1839 after the Grimma Gate (Grimmaisches Tor), the gateway to Grimma, which was first mentioned in 1421. Before that it was called Grimmaische Gasse and was the main street of the Grimma quarter. Today it is a heavily frequented pedestrian zone in a prime location with department stores, shops, restaurants, hotels, a museum and the university as residents.
The Leipzig city gates were structural facilities that existed from the Middle Ages to the 19th century to regulate and control the movement of people and goods into and out of the city of Leipzig, Germany. They initially also had a defensive function. In addition to the four main gates and the five known smaller gates (wickets) through the city wall, several so-called outer gates were later added, which controlled the access roads to the city as secondary gates. None of the gates remain at their original locations.
The Bachviertel, initially called "Viertel am Johannapark", is a Wilhelminian-style residential area in the west of Leipzig's borough Mitte in Saxony, Germany. According the administrative division of Leipzig, the Bachviertel is part of the locality Zentrum-West. It ist named after Johann Sebastian Bach.
51°20′4.3908″N12°21′45.058″E / 51.334553000°N 12.36251611°E