Maschpark Hannover

First municipal park in Hanover, testimony to the garden art of the late 19th century. Important preserved ensemble of architecture and park landscape.
Park complex with symmetrical garden spaces near the buildings (New Town Hall, State Museum) and gradual transition into a landscape park.
Arrangement of woody backdrops along picturesque lines with grove-like areas, shrub sections and groups of trees; first-time transplanting of large trees.
Pond with winding banks, a small island as well as a water lily bay as a central component of the park.
Today important inner-city green space in connection with the nearby Maschsee.

The Maschpark is located in the former floodplain (Masch) of the "Leine".

After the grinding of the city fortifications around 1780, wide promenades and at the Freidrichswall a stretched park were created. From 1860 there were considerations for the development of the front Masch with ministerial buildings. Despite protests - who wanted to keep the meadows as a playground and playground with an unobstructed view up to the heights of the Deister - in 1895 the magistrate of the city set the so-called Aegidienmasch as the site for the construction of the New Town Hall. A competition was held and the creation of a park was prescribed. The city planning office, in cooperation with the city garden director Julius Trip, developed a plan for a park in which the New City Hall and also the State Museum were to be embedded.

Different parts of the park were planned, which were to develop from the buildings (New Town Hall and State Museum, begun in 1897) in a gradual transition to Maschpark Hannover the landscape. The view to the mountain range "Deister" south of Hanover was to be preserved.

In the park, therefore, regular garden spaces (plazas or parterres) were developed from the central axis of the New Town Hall or the State Museum. These symmetrical garden areas were embedded in the adjoining "natural" parkland.

The woody backdrops were arranged according to picturesque considerations and to direct view relationships. The stands were closed down to the ground, their outlines loosened up by pre-plantings of perennials. Overall, the Maschpark was characterized by grove-like, loosely placed groups of trees and an abundance of perennials. For the first time, large trees from the previously existing green space at Friedrichswall were also transplanted into the park during the construction of the wooded areas.

Central component of the park was - and is - the Maschteich, flooded in 1900, with winding embankments and a small island. On the south bank of the pond, at the water lily bay, a rock peninsula (miniature landscape of an Alpinum) was created.

The land consumption by road traffic has not stopped at the Maschpark. Essentially unchanged to this day are the buildings associated with the park, the New Town Hall and the State Museum. The dense wooded backdrop and the later tree-lined avenues around the Maschsee today block the view of the open landscape.

In 1985, the Maschpark was declared the "Park of the Twin Cities" (Blantyre, Bristol, Hiroshima, Leipzig, Perpignan, Poznan and Rouen). From 1990 to 1992, the city of Hannover restored parts of the Maschpark to their original form. In particular, the parterre in front of the Landesmuseum is worthy of mention.

The decorative character created at the beginning of the 20th century by flowering and leafy shrubs could no longer be maintained in recent years due to changing light conditions and above all because of the high maintenance effort.

Texts: Sabine Scherer, Kirchner Ingenieure