Luisenpark
Encyclopedia
Mannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....
, Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, whose attractions include a greenhouse
Greenhouse
A greenhouse is a building in which plants are grown. These structures range in size from small sheds to very large buildings...
, "gondoletta
Gondoletta
Gondoletta is a Water ride in amusement park Efteling in the Netherlands.It was developed by Intamin ; designed by Ton van de Ven and started operating in 1981.-History and details:...
" boats and a variety of facilities for children. Along with the Herzogenriedpark (33 hectares; on the other side of the Neckar
Neckar
The Neckar is a long river, mainly flowing through the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, but also a short section through Hesse, in Germany. The Neckar is a major right tributary of the River Rhine...
river) it is operated by the non-profit Stadtpark Mannheim gGmbH.
History
The Luisenpark was built between 1892-1903, based on a legacy of scientist professor Dr. Carl William Casimir Fox, who bequeathed 20,000 Deutsche Marks in his will to the city of MannheimMannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....
for the making of a new park . This amount was not sufficient for total financing, but formed a basic start. At the end of 1892 construction work laid according to the plans of the Siesmayer brothers, Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
landscape gardeners.
Conditions for the ascent of the Luisenparks for supraregional meaning was the resolution of the Mannheimer of local council from November 18 1969 to accomplish the Bundesgartenschau 1975 to develop the Luisenpark as well as the Herzogenriedpark. At that time the park was extended to a size of 41 hectares by the inclusion of a former racecourse.
The sales of 186,000 season tickets, which was not even reached by all federal horticultural shows, the number of 8.1 million visitors, and the removal of the Luisenpark fence, convinced the city council to operate the Luisenpark as city park with entrance fee. However, on October 21, 1975, the decision for a closed Luisenpark with entrance fee fell. It was agreed to have two probationary years (Probejahre) of free entrance, but over 38,000 maps sold yearly demonstrated a convincing argument to maintain the free entrance to the park.
Name
The Luisenpark is named after princess Luise Marie Elizabeth of PrussiaPrussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
, a close relative of three German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
emperors: William I
William I, German Emperor
William I, also known as Wilhelm I , of the House of Hohenzollern was the King of Prussia and the first German Emperor .Under the leadership of William and his Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Prussia achieved the unification of Germany and the...
was her father, Frederick III
Frederick III, German Emperor
Frederick III was German Emperor and King of Prussia for 99 days in 1888, the Year of the Three Emperors. Friedrich Wilhelm Nikolaus Karl known informally as Fritz, was the only son of Emperor William I and was raised in his family's tradition of military service...
was her brother and William II
William II, German Emperor
Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was a grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe...
was her nephew.
On September 26th, 1856, when she was eighteen-years old, she married the Prince Regent, later Grand Duke
Grand Duke
The title grand duke is used in Western Europe and particularly in Germanic countries for provincial sovereigns. Grand duke is of a protocolary rank below a king but higher than a sovereign duke. Grand duke is also the usual and established translation of grand prince in languages which do not...
of Baden
Baden
Baden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany....
, Frederick I. She carried out crucial pioneering work for the Wohlfahrtspflege in Baden. As an eighty-year old, she, along with her daughter, Queen Victoria of Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, had to flee through a window from marauding soldiers attempting to take the castle in Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe
The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
.
Attractions
Arboretum
An arboretum in a narrow sense is a collection of trees only. Related collections include a fruticetum , and a viticetum, a collection of vines. More commonly, today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study...
, and greenhouses for display and for tree ferns.
- The Kutzerweiher (40,000 m²), a lake forming a side-channel (slough) of the (old) NeckarNeckarThe Neckar is a long river, mainly flowing through the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, but also a short section through Hesse, in Germany. The Neckar is a major right tributary of the River Rhine...
river. Gondolettas, boats pulled by an underwater rope, follow a 1,840 meter long looped course around the lake.
- An open-air stage with approximately 1,000 seats has offered since 2006 a place for concerts, operas, musical shows and plays.
- The Chinese gardenChinese gardenThe Chinese garden, also known as a Chinese classical garden, is a style of landscape garden which has evolved for more than three thousand years, and which is inspired by Chinese literature, Chinese painting and Chinese philosophy...
(5,000 m²), 多景园 Duojingyuan = garden of the many opinions, and its tea house were built in co-operation with Mannheim's Chinese twin city ZhenjiangZhenjiangZhenjiang is a prefecture-level city in the southwest of Jiangsu province in the eastern People's Republic of China . Sitting on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, it borders the provincial capital of Nanjing to the west, Changzhou to the east, and Yangzhou across the river to the north.Once...
(province JiangsuJiangsu' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located along the east coast of the country. The name comes from jiang, short for the city of Jiangning , and su, for the city of Suzhou. The abbreviation for this province is "苏" , the second character of its name...
), the Klaus TschiraKlaus TschiraKlaus Tschira is a german entrepreneur. After gaining his physics diploma and working at IBM, he co-founded the German software giant SAP AG in 1972 in Walldorf, Germany together with Hans-Werner Hector, Dietmar Hopp, Hasso Plattner and Claus Wellenreuther...
charitable trust in HeidelbergHeidelberg-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
, and the East Asia Institute (Ostasieninstitut) Ludwigshafen. The donation of 1,77 million Deutsche Mark (DM) from the estate of DiplomDiplomA Diplom is an academic degree in the German-speaking countries Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and a similarly named degree in some other European countries including Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Estonia, Finland , Greece, Hungary, Russia, Serbia, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Ukraine...
-Kaufmann George, provided the financial foundation for the garden and tea house.
- The Pflanzenschauhaus (2,700 m²), a greenhouseGreenhouseA greenhouse is a building in which plants are grown. These structures range in size from small sheds to very large buildings...
and exhibition garden, is located at the site of the Palmenhaus (palm house) which was destroyed in the Second World War. It contains a butterflyButterflyA butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...
house, birdBirdBirds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
exhibits, as well as salt and fresh water aquariums.
- Towering over the Luisenpark is a 205 meters high telecommunicationTelecommunicationTelecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
tower (Fernmeldeturm) with its rotating restaurant at 125 meters above the ground.
- The Spielwiese (2,700 m²), a large playgroundPlaygroundA playground or play area is a place with a specific design for children be able to play there. It may be indoors but is typically outdoors...
and leisure meadowMeadowA meadow is a field vegetated primarily by grass and other non-woody plants . The term is from Old English mædwe. In agriculture a meadow is grassland which is not grazed by domestic livestock but rather allowed to grow unchecked in order to make hay...
, located on the grounds of the original race track, borders on a model farm with domesticDomesticationDomestication or taming is the process whereby a population of animals or plants, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to human provision and control. In the Convention on Biological Diversity a domesticated species is defined as a 'species in which the evolutionary process has been...
animals enclosures, and a Chinese tea house
