Bürgerpark and Stadtwald are the best-known parks in Bremen. With a combined area of more than 200 hectares, it is the second largest green space in the Hanseatic city after the Park links der Weser.
The Bürgerpark was created in the second half of the 19th century not far from the main railway station as a classic public garden with lakes, coffee houses and sunbathing lawns within the wooded areas. In the period after 1900, the 65-hectare city forest was created to the north. Together they now offer visitors a wide range of leisure activities with attractions as diverse as animal enclosures, a boat hire service, a Finnish course, nature trails and mini golf and boules pitches.
Both the city forest and the Bürgerpark are home to numerous sculptures and monuments, some of which are more than 130 years old, as well as several listed buildings in harmonious natural ensembles. To this day, maintenance is carried out without regular funding from the public purse by the Bürgerparkverein, which is supported exclusively by contributions and donations. One of its most important sources of income is the "Bürgerpark Tombola", which has been held annually from the beginning of February until May since 1953.
Location Bürgerpark and Stadtwald are located around one kilometer north-east of Bremen's old town and extend in an irregular quadrangle in the same direction. They are located in the Bürgerpark and Neu-Schwachhausen districts of Schwachhausen. Starting in the south at Hollerallee, directly opposite the Stadthalle (now Bremen Arena), the green corridor is bordered by the Torfkanal and Findorffallee to the west along its entire length and by Parkallee to the east. The Bremen loop between Sagehorn and Dreye of the Bremen-Hamburg railroad line acts as the boundary between Bürgerpark and Stadtwald. The two areas are connected by two small pedestrian underpasses on either side of the park. The Wetterungsweg forms the northern boundary. However, the 28.2 hectare Stadtwaldsee (Unisee) and the 11.4 hectare nature reserve "Am Stadtwaldsee (Uni-Wildnis)" extend above it, connecting the parks with the Blockland and thus extending into the city like a green tongue from the extensive marshes.
Unlike many other large urban parks, such as New York's Central Park or Berlin's Tiergarten, Bürgerpark and Stadtwald are not dissected by roads. The only large, uniform passageway from one side to the other is a wide, closed route that begins at the police station in the east, passes the Emmasee lake to the north and exits on the west side. It represents the non-trafficable link in the cross-district road system Waller Ring, Osterfeuerberger Ring, Utbremer Ring in the west and Schwachhauser Ring, Kirchbachstraße in the east. Bürgerpark can be reached by streetcar lines 5, 6 and 8 and bus lines 22, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28 of Bremer Straßenbahn AG. The surrounding stops are Am Stern, Bürgerpark, Findorffallee, Weidedamm, Weidedamm III, Parkallee, Busestraße/Bürgerpark and Emmastraße/Bürgerpark.
History
Citizens' park
Planning
The rural cultivation of Bremer Bürgerweide - originally 450 hectares of meadowland north of the city, but reduced in size in the course of urbanization - steadily declined in the 1860s and was completely discontinued in 1864. Another possible use had to be considered. From July 16 to 24, 1865, several thousand marksmen held the Second German Federal Shoot on the meadow. The participants suffered from the strong sunlight and heat on the bare surface, and the idea of a shooting range under trees came up. Although the city authorities planned further events on the Bürgerweide to strengthen "Bremen's reputation in the German Reich", the expanding city also needed recreational areas and green spaces, which at the time were only available in the ramparts.
The merchant and businessman Johann Hermann Holler was probably the main initiator of the idea of reforesting the area. The first meeting of interested citizens took place on September 25 of the same year in Bremen's Ratskeller under the leadership of the merchant Franz Ernst Schütte. It soon became clear that the Senate would not make any funds available for such a project, which is why a citizens' initiative was formed. It was constituted on November 16 as the Committee for the Reforestation of the Bürgerweide with an initial 60 members.Schwarzwälder (2003), p. 153
The committee soon commissioned Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Nagel to draw up a general plan. This envisaged playgrounds, a concert garden, lakes, meadows, a riding arena and other typical design elements of a public park. However, Nagel himself rejected his proposal and eventually withdrew it. The project then stalled somewhat, but the committee entered into negotiations with three garden architects. In the end, Wilhelm Benque's plans were chosen. Following this agreement, which promised rapid progress on the work, the association became very popular and soon had around 800 members.Catherine Guigon, Les Cocottes, reines du Paris 1900, Paris, Parigramme, 2012, pages 60-61. Benque was appointed as an employee of the committee and future park director. A complete design plan had been drawn up and a lot of money had been raised in the form of donations before the committee's board submitted a request to the Senate with the intention of putting a section of the Bürgerweide to a different use and creating an "urban grove". The request was granted, and the Senate and the citizens signed over an area of 76 hectares to the planners.
Origin The ground-breaking ceremony took place on June 28, 1866, and almost 170 workers completed the first garden architectural measure with the excavation of today's Emmasee. Although Benque revised his plans again at the turn of the year 1866/1867 (including moving the large water basin - later Hollersee - further south on the advice of garden director Johann Heinrich Gustav Meyer), the first trees were planted in the spring of 1867.Wolschke-Bulmahn, Joachim (1997). Nature and Ideology: Natural Garden Design in the Twentieth Century, Volume 18. Dumbarton Oaks. A few months later, the first coffee house with music pavilion and grotto was built. In August, work began on the main grounds to the south, including the Hollersee lake, which was completed three years later. Almost at the same time, however, Benque withdrew from the project at the end of 1870. Other sources speak of a dismissal.
In 1872, the Bürgerweide woodland committee gave rise to the Bürgerparkverein, which still exists today, and those responsible in the municipal committees approved a further 60 hectares as an extension of the site to the north ("Bürgerwald"). The large parking garage was built in 1873. In that year, the park presented itself for the first time as a homogeneous design unit from the beginning in the south to the street of the Schwachhauser Ring, i.e. over a length of almost one kilometer. In 1874, the shooting range, which had originally prompted the redesign of the Bürgerweide, was opened, and from June 13 to 21 of the same year, the International Agricultural Exhibition was held in the new park. In 1877, the merchant Franz Ernst Schütte was appointed chairman of the association and, as such, significantly advanced the expansion and progress of the design - not least through massive financial contributions from his assets acquired through oil imports. Benque also resumed his post as park director in 1877 and saw the completion of the Meierei three years later. In 1884, he finally resigned after controversial discussions regarding the further development of the park. His successor was Carl Ohrt. The construction work was completed in 1886 and the Bürgerpark was finally laid out.
More history
An event of supra-regional importance was the Northwest German Trade and Industrial Exhibition, which was held from May 31 to October 15, 1890, on a 37.5-hectare area in the southern part of the park. The parking garage was demolished and a new building was erected as the main exhibition building. However, this burned down in a major fire in 1907, which is why a third parking garage in the style of a princely country estate was inaugurated six years later.
In Bremen during the National Socialist era, three air raid shelters were built on the east side of the Bürgerpark during the Second World War, which are still preserved. The one opposite the junction of Emmastraße and Parkallee initially served as a command bunker for the 8th anti-aircraft division and later, in 1945, for the combat commander. The other two are located in the section between Bulthauptstrasse and Benquestrasse. In the course of the air raids, the green spaces suffered massive devastation - for example, the multi-storey parking lot and the tall observation tower in Bürgerpark, which was donated by Franz Ernst Schütte, were destroyed. The former was rebuilt as a park hotel in 1956.
City forest At a meeting on July 6, 1906, the committee and board of the Bürgerparkverein decided to submit an application to the Senate with the request that the trapezoidal area north of the railroad line up to Wetterungsweg - the so-called Bürgerweidekämpe - be transferred to the association for the creation of a city forest. The park director at the time, Carl Ohrt, was responsible for the garden design, and the businessman and chairman of the Bürgerparkverein, Franz Schütte, agreed to provide 100,000 gold marks from his private assets to cover the costs. In July, the members of the association approved the request at an extraordinary general meeting, which was then sent immediately. On September 14, the Senate announced its approval:Graf, Bürgerparkverein (Hrsg.) (2006), S. 2–3
In October of the same year, two locomobiles and a steam plough with an associated water tank wagon, which had been borrowed from the Oldenburg forestry administration, were used in the course of the initial work. The silty clay soil over fenland with locally heavy groundwater had to be ploughed up to 70 centimetres deep at first. As the high groundwater level prevented the formation of a wide root network, the trees were planted extremely close together so that they could support each other. A total of 525,000 deciduous and coniferous tree seedlings, 75,000 coppice seedlings and 1,940 avenue trees were planted over an area of 265 acres. Avenues with a total length of 5,270 meters were created, and the excavation of the Kleiner Stadtwaldsee lake made it possible to build a seven-meter-high mound on its banks. On both the east and west sides, a conifer conservation area was created and the forest opened up into four small, scattered clearings with sunbathing lawns. The footpaths were designed in grass form, giving them a carpet-like appearance and requiring considerably lower maintenance costs. The most remarkable feature, however, were two large avenues. The north–south axis ran dead straight for a length of almost 600 meters, and the slightly curved west–east transversal was 20 meters wide and had two rows of trees on either side. The forest hut was built at the intersection of the two routes in the middle of the city forest. In May 1908, after less than two years of construction, the board of the association announced the completion of the redesign at a general meeting. In the end, the costs had more than doubled and Schütte paid 250,000 gold marks.