Luisenstädtischer Kanal

The Luisenstädtischer Kanal was laid out in the mid-19th century as a shipping canal between the Spree and the Landwehrkanal in the course of Berlin's structural expansion on the basis of the "Bebauungs-Plan für das Cöpnicker Feld zu Berlin" (Development Plan for the Cöpnicker Field in Berlin) designed by Peter Joseph Lenné (1789-1866). The street Unter den Linden and - as a reference to Queen Elisabeth, wife of Friedrich Wilhelm IV and daughter of the Bavarian King Ludwig I - the canal in the park of Nymphenburg Palace (Munich) serve as models. At the same time, the Luisenstädtischer Kanal forms the centrepiece of Lenné's plan "Projektirte Schmuck- und Grenzzüge von Berlin mit nächster Umgegend" (1840).
In 1926/27, it is filled in, and decorative pools, flowering gardens, playgrounds and promenades are created between the old canal walls according to plans by the Berlin city garden director Erwin Barth (1880-1933) and the garden office directors Hans Martin and Leo Kloss.

The green corridor, which was barely damaged during the war, was partially filled in with rubble from the heavily destroyed Luisenstadt in the 1950s and redesigned in the style of the time. With the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the green corridor met a separate fate for about 30 years:
The garden sections located in the East Berlin district of Mitte and the Engelbecken were completely filled in and developed into border fortifications. In the process, all the rows of trees lining the former canal were cut down. On the West Berlin side, between Urbanhafen and Waldemarbrücke, the green corridor eked out an existence in the shadow of the Wall and was redesigned in the 1980s in connection with the plans for the International Building Exhibition (IBA) according to designs by Baller, Luz, and Hanke. In the process, however, the historic design principles and thus also the Barth low position of the canal gardens were no longer included.

Restoration measures 1991 - 2012
As a result of a courageous decision by the Berlin Garden Monument Preservation Department, the gradual restoration of the Luisenstädtischer Kanal was able to begin shortly after the fall of the Wall in close coordination with the Mitte district office of Berlin: in 1991, the promenades in the former East Berlin section between Waldemarbrücke and Köpenicker Straße were replanted with Lenné's rows of linden trees, also in order to protect the site as a monument and green space from being converted into a traffic road. Monument protection was declared for the entire canal course in 1993 and the garden sections located in the Mitte district were restored on the basis of garden archaeological excavations.