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The Tiergarten (German: [ˈtiːɐ̯ˌɡaʁtn̩] , English: Animal Garden), formal German name: Großer Tiergarten (English: Greater Animal Garden, or deer park, game hunting park), is a prominent park in Berlin's inner-city area, [1] located completely in the district of the same name. It is one of the most popular parks in the city and at 210 hectares (520 acres) in size, is among the largest urban gardens in Germany. [2] Only the Tempelhofer Park (previously Berlin's Tempelhof airport) and Munich's Englischer Garten are larger.
The beginnings of the Tiergarten can be traced back to 1527. It was founded as a hunting area for the Elector of Brandenburg, and was situated to the west of the Cölln city wall, which was the sister town of Old Berlin. It also sat in the same vicinity as the City Palace (Stadtschloss). In 1530 the expansion began; acres of land were purchased and the garden began to expand towards the north and west. The total area extended beyond the current Tiergarten, and the forests were perfect for hunting deer and other wild animals (Tiergarten might literally be translated as animal garden). 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.
Frederick Wilhelm I (1688–1740), Elector of Brandenburg (1713–1740), feeling the need to bring change to his private hunting grounds, [1] built many structures that are still visible today.[ citation needed ] As the King was expanding Unter den Linden, a roadway that connected the City Palace and the Tiergarten, he had a swathe of forest removed in order to connect his castle to the newly built 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, Frederick II (Frederick the Great) (1712–1786) did not appreciate the hunt as his predecessors did,[ citation needed ] In 1740, he opened the park's first public gardens. [1] In 1742 he instructed the architect Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff to tear down the fences that surrounded the territory and to turn the park into a Lustgarten (literally "pleasure garden"), one that would be open to the people of Berlin.[ citation needed ] In the baroque style popular at the time he added flowerbeds, borders and espaliers in geometrical layouts, along with mazes, water basins and ornamental ponds; he also commissioned sculptures to add cultural significance. Unique to the time period, areas of congregation called "salons" were established along the many different walkways in the park. These salons were blocked off from the walking path by hedges or trees and often furnished with seating, fountains and vases, offering guests a change of pace and a place to discuss intellectual matters in private. Such freedom was common under the rule of Frederick II; there were even residents allowed to live within the Tiergarten. Refugees, Huguenots in hiding from the French, were allowed to erect tents and sell refreshments to the pedestrians walking through the park. In 1786, the year of the king's death, his youngest brother Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia moved into Bellevue Palace, which he had built inside the Tiergarten (on the premises of a former mansion on the banks of the Spree river which Knobelsdorff had built for himself in 1743). Furthermore a pheasant house was erected inside the park, which would later become the core of the Zoological Garden, a zoo founded in 1844 that lies within the greater Tiergarten. During the revolutions of 1848, the park hosted the first assembly demanding the abolishment of the national censors.[ citation needed ]
At the end of the 18th century, Knobelsdorff's late-baroque form had been all but replaced by ideas for a new, scenic garden ideal. The castle park Bellevue and Rousseau Island were laid out by court gardener Justus Ehrenreich Sello in the late 18th century. It was then in 1818 that the king commissioned the help of Peter Joseph Lenné, a young man who was at the time the gardener's assistant at Sanssouci in Potsdam. His plans involved the creation of a rural Volkspark, or people's park, that would also serve as a sort of Prussian national park that would help lift the spirits of those who visited. However, the King Frederick William III rejected Lenné's plan. Against the opposition of a hesitant bureaucracy, Lenné submitted a modified version of his concept. This plan was accepted and realized between 1833 and 1840. The park was modeled after English gardens, but Lenné made sure to pay attention to Knobelsdorff's structures and layouts. By draining forests areas he allowed for more footpaths, roadways, and 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 Emperor. Soon after Emperor William I abolished his rights to the forest, he added the boundaries to the new district of Berlin, so that the people may use and uphold it. However, until the middle of the twentieth century, the Tiergarten remained in the style that Lenné had left it in. The biggest changes came in the form of nationalistic memorials that began construction in 1849 under the directorship of Eduard Niede and Hermann Geitner. These monuments were seen as patriotic contributions to the culture of the Tiergarten. The Siegesallee ("Victory Avenue") could be considered the most famous addition. Built under the orders of Emperor 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.
The park is covered in statues commemorating those famous to the Prussians and the activities they enjoyed doing. Animal statues are to be found throughout the park, playing the counterpart to the stone hunters that also inhabit the area. Built by famous sculptor Friedrich Drake, a statue to Queen Louise, beloved queen of the Prussians, is also to be found here alongside her husband, Frederick William III. Statues of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Theodor Fontane, Richard Wagner and Albert Lortzing were also erected. The Komponistendenkmal, or the 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.
The Nazi Party took control of Germany in 1933, causing a dramatic change of idealism. This change was not just social; in fact, Adolf Hitler had planned the complete renovation of the city of Berlin. "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 Second World War caused significant damage to the Tiergarten and its various cultural elements. Many statues were destroyed or damaged. Some of the Berlin citizens even buried statues in the grounds of the nearby 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.
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's 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 Haus der Kulturen der Welt is a prime example. It began construction in 1956 under the initiative of Eleanor Dulles as an American contribution to the Interbau, an International Architecture Exhibition employed to exhibit new social, cultural, and ecological ideas in architecture.
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.
The park is located on the northern and central side of Tiergarten Ortsteil and is bordered, on the northern side, by the river Spree. The little quarter Hansaviertel borders on it at the north-western side and the Zoological Garden is situated on the south-western side. The principal road is the Straße des 17. Juni, which ends at the Brandenburg Gate to the east. Other main roads are the Altonaer Straße, Spreeweg and Hofjägerallee. In the middle of the park is the square named Großer Stern ("Great Star") with the Siegessäule (Victory column) located in its centre. In addition to the Brandenburg Gate, other notable buildings and structures located close to the park are the Soviet War Memorial, the Reichstag (seat of the Bundestag) and Federal Chancellery (seat of the Chancellor of Germany) (all in the eastern borders), the new central railway station (in the north) and, on the southeastern borders, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the 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.
The park is principally served by the S-Bahn at the rail stops of 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]
The Straße des 17. Juni, is a street in central Berlin, the capital of Germany. Its name refers to the 17 June 1953 uprising in East Germany. It is the western continuation of the boulevard Unter den Linden. It runs east–west through the Tiergarten, a large park to the west of the city centre. At the eastern end of the street is the Brandenburg Gate and the Platz des 18. März, it then passes the Soviet War Memorial before passing either side of the Victory Column (Siegessäule) in the middle of the park, and out of the park through the Charlottenburg Gate, terminating about half a kilometre later at Ernst-Reuter-Platz. The street is a section of the main western thoroughfare radiating out from the centre of Berlin so the road continues to the west of Ernst-Reuter-Platz, the first section of which is called Bismarckstraße.
Unter den Linden is a boulevard in the central Mitte district of Berlin, Germany. Running from the Berlin Palace to the Brandenburg Gate, it is named after the linden trees that line the grassed pedestrian mall on the median and the two broad carriageways. The avenue links numerous Berlin sights, landmarks and rivers for sightseeing.
Mitte is the first and most central borough of Berlin. The borough consists of six sub-entities: Mitte proper, Gesundbrunnen, Hansaviertel, Moabit, Tiergarten and Wedding.
Charlottenburg is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Established as a town in 1705 and named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, Queen consort of Prussia, it is best known for Charlottenburg Palace, the largest surviving royal palace in Berlin, and the adjacent museums.
Tiergarten is a locality within the borough of Mitte, in central Berlin (Germany). Notable for the great and homonymous urban park, before German reunification, it was a part of West Berlin. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform, Tiergarten was also the name of a borough (Bezirk), consisting of the current locality (Ortsteil) of Tiergarten plus Hansaviertel and Moabit. A new system of road and rail tunnels runs under the park towards Berlin's main station in nearby Moabit.
Bellevue Palace, located in Berlin's Tiergarten district, has been the official residence of the president of Germany since 1994. The schloss is situated on the banks of the Spree river, near the Berlin Victory Column, along the northern edge of the Großer Tiergarten park. Its name – the French for "beautiful view" – derives from its scenic prospect over the Spree's course.
The Siegesallee was a broad boulevard in Berlin, Germany. In 1895, Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered and financed the expansion of an existing avenue, to be adorned with a variety of marble statues. Work was completed in 1901.
(Hans) Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff was a painter and architect in Prussia.
Pfaueninsel is an island in the River Havel situated in Berlin-Wannsee, in the district of Steglitz-Zehlendorf in southwestern Berlin, near the border with Potsdam in Brandenburg. The island is part of the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its outstanding Prussian architecture and is a popular destination for day-trippers. Pfaueninsel is also a nature reserve in accordance with the EU Habitats Directive and a Special Protection Area for wild birds.
The Soviet War Memorial is one of several war memorials in Berlin, the capital city of Germany, erected by the Soviet Union to commemorate its war dead, particularly the 80,000 soldiers of the Soviet Armed Forces who died during the Battle of Berlin in April and May 1945.
Tiergartenstraße is a street in the Tiergarten district in central Berlin, the capital of Germany. The street runs east-west along the southern edge of the Großer Tiergarten park from Kemperplatz and Ben-Gurion-Straße near Sony Center and Potsdamer Platz in the east to the intersection of Hofjägerallee and Klingelhöferstraße in the west. On the street’s southern side, the street intersects with, Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße, Stauffenbergstraße, Hildebrandstraße, Hiroshimastraße and Clara-Wieck-Straße.
The Landwehr Canal, is a 10.7-kilometre-long (6.6 mi) canal parallel to the Spree river in Berlin, Germany, built between 1845 and 1850 to plans by Peter Joseph Lenné. It connects the upper part of the Spree at the eastern harbour in Friedrichshain with its lower part in Charlottenburg, flowing through Kreuzberg and Tiergarten.
Berlin Tiergarten is a railway station on the Berlin Stadtbahn line in the Tiergarten district of Berlin. It lies between the stations of Zoologischer Garten and Bellevue on the Straße des 17. Juni in the Hansaviertel locality of the Mitte borough. It opened in 1885 and is served by the S-Bahn lines S3, S5, S7 and S9 and located very close to the Großer Tiergarten park. The station is part of the Stadtbahn viaduct and has heritage listing.
Charlottenburg Gate with Charlottenburg Bridge is a Neo-Baroque structure in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin. Erected in 1907 at the behest of the then independent City of Charlottenburg, it was meant as a counterpart to Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.
Berlin's history has left the city with an eclectic assortment of architecture. The city's appearance in the 21st century has been shaped by the key role the city played in Germany's 20th-century history. Each of the governments based in Berlin—the Kingdom of Prussia, the 1871 German Empire, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, East Germany and the reunified Federal Republic of Germany—initiated ambitious construction programs, with each adding its distinct flavour to the city's architecture.
Kleiner Tiergarten is a park in Moabit, Berlin, Germany.
Park Glienicke, is an English landscape garden in the southwestern outskirts of Berlin, Germany. It is located in the locality of Wannsee in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf borough. Close to Glienicke Bridge the park is open to the general public. The park is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin. Within the ensemble it is one of the five main parks, the others being Sanssouci Park, New Garden, Babelsberg Park and Peacock Island (Pfaueninsel). Regarding diversity in gardening styles within the Potsdam park ensemble Park Glienicke is only superseded by Sanssouci Park. Furthermore, it is a park especially characterized by one personality due to the intense involvement of Prince Charles of Prussia. The park covers approximately 116 hectares
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.).