Freundschaftsinsel Postdam

With its herbaceous perennial show garden first created in the 1930s, the Freundschaftsinsel in Potsdam is an important monument of garden art and its intellectual father, the garden philosopher and herbaceous perennial plant breeder Karl Foerster.

On the basis of a garden monument conservation report (TOPOS/Bergande 1996), areas worthy of preservation, including their historic plantings, were restored for the Federal Garden Show in Potsdam and combined with a redesign of the entrance areas, the banks and a playscape.

In the overall programme of the Federal Horticultural Show 2001, the Freundschaftsinsel (Friendship Island) was an important part of the "Orte am Fluß" (Places on the River) exhibition. Due to its exposed location between two parts of the city and as a spacious green area in front of the historic old town, this natural river island plays an outstanding role. In addition, it represents an important monument of garden art and its intellectual father, the garden philosopher and perennial plant breeder Karl FOERSTER, with the perennial plant show and display garden first created in the 1930s and its redesigns in the 1950s and 1970s.

The intellectual currents, political and economic conditions that had passed over the island, which has been a listed monument since 1977, in the past six decades had left a variety of traces. In addition to design changes, the technical infrastructure, the buildings, the paths and the playground were in need of repair or renewal after almost thirty years of use. The island was also so overgrown with woody plants that important view connections, especially to the water, no longer existed and the variety of locations for perennial plantings was limited by shade pressure and root competition.

On the basis of in-depth investigations and an overall concept for the preservation of garden monuments (BERGANDE / TOPOS, 1996), the island could be restored step by step until the beginning of the Federal Garden Show in spring 2001. In addition to the restoration of the actual perennial garden in its three important design phases of the thirties, fifties and seventies, the development and fencing were redesigned, the entire technical infrastructure was renewed, the buildings and paths were repaired and the island areas outside the perennial garden were redesigned.

In 1937, FRIEDRICHS, the acting mayor, took up the suggestion of Bornim perennial gardener Karl FOERSTER to create a show and viewing garden. Instead of a site to the west of the Neues Palais favoured by FOERSTER, however, he suggested the Freundschaftsinsel as the location, probably in order to come closer to realising his own ideas. FOERSTER's colleague, Hermann MATTERN, was commissioned with the design, "... who now had the task of integrating the questions and concerns of a permanent flower show into the strict beauty design of the whole..." (FOERSTER, Der Potsdamer Platz). (FOERSTER, The Potsdam Island Garden).

Show and Sight Garden
The idea of "show and sight gardens" was one of Karl FOERSTER's guiding ideas that accompanied his breeding work throughout his life and can be traced back to the early days. It had become necessary to systematically collect the abundance of new cultivars as well as unknown new perennial species from all over the world "... and to carefully examine their usability for gardens ..."(HANSEN, Sichtungsgarten Weihenstephan).
In such a sighting garden the behaviour of perennials should be observed and evaluated over longer periods of time. In addition, in connection with a show garden, information, pleasure and recreation were to be offered to both experts and laymen.
The actual forerunner and first sighting garden on a large scale was founded in the 19th century by the Royal Horticultural Society at Wisley in England. This garden was certainly a stimulus to Karl FOERSTER, but it is only thanks to his initiative and perseverance that sight gardens were put into practice in Germany and on the Continent.
The garden on Freundschaftsinsel, designed by Hermann MATTERN in 1937/38, was the first sighting garden that can be traced back to Karl FOERSTER. The garden designer Hermann MATTERN headed Karl FOERSTER's design office from 1927-1935, from which the planning consortium Karl FOERSTER / Hermann MATTERN / Herta HAMMERBACHER emerged. The working group was the core of the so-called Bornim Circle, which included the garden architects and gardeners Walter FUNCKE, Hermann GÖRITZ, Heinz HAGEMANN, Richard HANSEN, Gottfried KÜHN and Alfred REICH. New tendencies in garden design and the use of plants emanated from the Bornim Circle, which "... are characterized above all by ... ... a distinctive spatial design and a diverse planting with splendidly flowering plants - woody plants, perennials, grasses, ferns, bulbous plants - planted according to their location" (HOLZLÖHNER, RATING, Der Bornimer Kreis).
The first show and display garden based on Hermann MATTERN's designs and the planting plans of Hermann GÖRITZ and Kurt LORENZEN lasted only a short time. After the work was stopped in 1940, without realizing the water basins and the restaurant building, the garden was almost completely destroyed during the Second World War, with the exception of a gatehouse and parts of the sandstone pergola.
In 1945, the area was divided into grave land to supply the Potsdam population.
Karl FOERSTER, who also accompanied the new creation of the show and sight garden in the fifties, continued to promote the necessary sighting of plants not only for growers and experts but also for "the little people", as here in an article from "Die Wohnlandschaft" : "... Here, of course, the most important permanent plants for everyone's garden are to be thought of first ..." (FOERSTER, Pflanzen im Prüfstand).
The sighting on the Freundschaftsinsel took place from 1957 until the abandonment in 1965 by the director of the island, Peter ALTMANN, who had worked for FOERSTER as a master gardener since 1948. The perennial assortments, especially of large perennials such as Delphinium, Helenium and Paeonien, but also small and cushion perennials were arranged in three plants of each variety on viewing beds. Opposite the viewing beds, the adjacency of perennials was demonstrated in mixed border plantings. At the end of the sighting Peter ALTMANN wrote: "... not least the very different and partly bad soil of the island leads to the cessation of the sighting work." ... "The Friendship Island ... remains the task of further observing the sighted perennials for their permanent behaviour" (ALTMANN, Sichtung und Erfahrung an Stauden). In 1963, at ALTMANN's suggestion, the flower garden was renamed the "Show and Teaching Garden". The task of passing on the experience gained in herbaceous perennial plant viewing was retained even after the island was developed into a centre for local recreation on the occasion of the World Youth and Student Festival in 1973.


Designs of the 1960s and 1970s
With the redesign of the city centre and its opening to the water in the 1960s, the island took on a new significance for inner-city recreational use. The redesigns of the island in 1973 go back to the plans for the horticultural grounds of the Freundschaftsinsel from the sixties.
The exhibition Plastik im Freien (Sculpture in the Open Air) in 1966 added a new dimension to the island's cultural offerings: following the tradition of the feudal gardens of Sanssouci, the aim was to create a harmonious combination of art and nature. In contrast to Baroque, Classicist and Romantic works of art, however, in accordance with the GDR's self-image, instead of monarchs and generals, well-known representatives of socialist society were to be depicted, and instead of mythological figures, the "young and lively ... socialist society" instead of mythological figures: "... Venus ... became the sporty 'swimmer', the flower goddess Flora a 'gardener's boy'". (exhibition catalogue 1966). Many of the sculptures, some by well-known GDR artists such as ARNOLD, CREMER, HUNZINGER-FRANK and others, have been preserved by the island through purchases or donations.
In addition to the sculptures, ceramic works such as planters and decorative walls by Hedwig BOLLHAGEN, who had worked with various garden designers since the 1930s, can also be seen on the island.
With the development of the Friendship Island for sport and leisure on the occasion of the World Festival in 1973, despite the reconstruction and expansion of the horticultural facilities by Walter FUNCKE and Hermann GÖRITZ and despite the efforts of Peter ALTMANN and his later successor Jörg NÄTHE, the concern of the show and teaching garden receded further into the background in favour of numerous leisure activities, which now had their focus on the island. The perennial garden was degraded to a pretty backdrop for major events.


Garden Monument Preservation Restoration
With the organization of a Federal Garden Show in 2001, the city of Potsdam was given the opportunity to continue Karl FOERSTER's legacy on Friendship Island by restoring and harmoniously connecting monument areas of different design phases, as well as by withdrawing detrimental uses and resolving design deficiencies.
The most important goal was the restoration and period-typical planting of connected monument areas in the show and teaching garden, each representing a main design phase of the island with largely original monument substance.
The new planting of the approximately 100,000 perennials, some of which came from the stocks of Friendship Island that have since been removed, was oriented thematically, in the use of plants and in the selection of species and varieties to the respective design phase to be restored.


Memorial areas of the 1930s
From the first planting of the 1930s, the stelae and slabs of the sandstone pergola were restored and the original wooden support restored. The planting in front of, behind and at the pergola, which had already been renewed by FUNCKE in the fifties, was based on planting plans by GÖRITZ and FUNCKE from the thirties and fifties. For this purpose it was necessary to restore the transparency of the pergola towards the water by reducing the outgrown stock of trees and shrubs.
The gatehouse, which was an important garden motif in the thirties, was restored for the same reasons as when it was first installed: Security and protection for the perennial garden and its sculptural decoration by means of an enclosure, highlighting its special character. The second gatehouse and walls, destroyed during the war, were reconstructed, but the fencing and garden gates were redesigned according to the changed conditions.


Memorial areas of the fifties
As a new element FUNCKE added in the fifties a water axis with fountain basins, basins for water plants, swamp and bank zones, which not only enriched the perennial garden with new plant themes and planting areas, but also continued Mattern's design ideas in an excellent way.


Memorial areas of the seventies
The rose garden as a preserved ensemble of exhibition pavilion, ornamental walls, trellises, furnishings and polygonal beds documents in an excellent way the design concept, use of materials and planting of the seventies as represented by Walter FUNCKE. Through restoration according to FUNCKE's plans and the use of numerous GDR rose varieties, the special character of the grounds could be preserved.
Another restored area of the 1970s is the design behind the monument to Karl FOERSTER, erected in 1974, with the natural stone surfaces, modelling, grass and ground cover plantings, which also bear FUNCKE's handwriting.


Karl Foerster Perennial Collection
During the preliminary planning and research for the planting, original Foerster perennial cultivars, as far as they are described in the literature, were to be collected, viewed by experts and planted in a kind of open-air museum on Friendship Island. A suitable location for this was a quarter on Neue Fahrt (the watercourse between the island and the station side), which was traditionally planted with large perennial species. The bed design from the seventies as well as the paths, trellises and the woody plantings in the peripheral areas were retained. With the participation of about 40 suppliers - herbaceous perennial plants companies, private individuals from Germany and other European countries - 204 of Karl FOERSTER's 362 proven cultivars have been collected and confirmed to be correct. The collection focuses on phloxes with about 50 varieties, asters and delphiniums with more than 30 varieties each, heleniums with about 20, chrysanthemums with 15, heliopsis with 7 and yucca with 6 varieties.
As already prepared in parts by Hermann GÖRITZ in the 1950s, plaques at the individual planting quarters provide information on the respective planting theme, origin, species composition and site requirements. In addition, 3,000 plant labels were produced for the approximately 1,200 varieties of perennials, 100 varieties of roses, as well as for climbing plants, trees and shrubs.


Development, enclosure and use
Thanks to the restoration of an enclosure around the perennial garden, better protection for the valuable perennial planting is now guaranteed. However, after the gates are closed at nightfall, access to the island will remain from the northern part to the southern part, connected by a riverside path along New Drive.
The planned concentration of the various structural uses, such as gastronomy, a garden supply store, gardener support point, island administration and information in a central island house, the former island café, could not be fully realized.
The play area completed for the Buga was created in collaboration with local artists. An abstracted, stranded wooden ship marks the former harbour and shipyard area of the island. The water playground made of worked sandstone blocks also picks up on the harbour theme. With waves of grass, the play area runs out towards the Neue Fahrt. Willow huts and willow mazes delimit the climbing play area from the gardener's base and its access road.
With the resurrected Friendship Island, not only did the Buga receive a horticultural gem for its decentralized exhibition concept, but above all the people of Potsdam received back an inner-city green space with which they have been closely connected for over 60 years.