DOI Heft:
No. 132 (February, 1908)
DOI Artikel:Deubner, L.: Professor Läuger's gardens at Mannheim
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28253#0313
Prof. Lunger's Gardens at Mannheim
GARDEN AT MANNHEIM EXHIBITION
DESIGNED BY PROF. MAX I.AUGER
P
ROFESSOR LAUGER’S GAR-
DENS AT MANNHEIM.
A strange fact in connection with the
modern movement in German arts and crafts is that
it has been brought about by rank outsiders, who
so far from receiving the support of those engaged
in the various trades, have encountered, and still en-
counter, the strongest opposition from those quarters.
If we are able now to speak of German “ Kunst-
gewerbe,” we owe it entirely to a small group of
sculptors and painters who perceived what the need
of our age was, and with the impetuous enthusiasm
of youthful world-reformers took the field against
deceptions and senseless imitations of all kinds.
And now after the lapse of a few years the same
thing is taking place in regard to garden design,
and here, too, it is the painters and architects who
demand an abandonment of the usages hitherto in
vogue and call for an arrangement of the garden at
once more rational and in accordance with the
spirit of the times. Again, too, are the reformers
vigorously assailed by the professional specialists
as presumptuous, officious disturbers of the peace.
The average gardener of the present day does,
indeed, claim to be “ modern ” and to go with the
times when he plans his much-loved carpet flower-
beds in “ Jugend-Stil,” and, instead of repeating
once more the eternal star pattern, allows the noto-
rious “ Belgian line ” to disturb the wonted order-
liness of his beds. But it never enters his head
that this sort of thing only proves how irrational and
incapable of understanding the deeper meaning of
the movement he is when he sets himself against
these endeavours to put an end to unnatural,
ridiculous imitation. He swears by the naturalistic
garden. How ludicrous is the idea of trying to
imitate an endless stretch of landscape in a small
confined space does not occur to him, and the con-
tention that house and garden should be treated
as parts of a coherent whole seems to him absurd.
Often indeed it looks very much as though the
gardener, with his tortuous paths running this way
and that way, had taken pains to avoid contact with
the house wherever possible, as if wishing to
proclaim that house and garden are separate and
distinct. That the peculiarities of the site may
call for study, and that the form of the garden may
depend on the position of the house to which it is
an adjunct—such obvious considerations as these he
fails to grasp, and that is why he rises up in arms
against those who wish to bring about a change.
In years gone by the early pioneers in the arts
and crafts, after overcoming untold difficulties, had
297
GARDEN AT MANNHEIM EXHIBITION
DESIGNED BY PROF. MAX I.AUGER
P
ROFESSOR LAUGER’S GAR-
DENS AT MANNHEIM.
A strange fact in connection with the
modern movement in German arts and crafts is that
it has been brought about by rank outsiders, who
so far from receiving the support of those engaged
in the various trades, have encountered, and still en-
counter, the strongest opposition from those quarters.
If we are able now to speak of German “ Kunst-
gewerbe,” we owe it entirely to a small group of
sculptors and painters who perceived what the need
of our age was, and with the impetuous enthusiasm
of youthful world-reformers took the field against
deceptions and senseless imitations of all kinds.
And now after the lapse of a few years the same
thing is taking place in regard to garden design,
and here, too, it is the painters and architects who
demand an abandonment of the usages hitherto in
vogue and call for an arrangement of the garden at
once more rational and in accordance with the
spirit of the times. Again, too, are the reformers
vigorously assailed by the professional specialists
as presumptuous, officious disturbers of the peace.
The average gardener of the present day does,
indeed, claim to be “ modern ” and to go with the
times when he plans his much-loved carpet flower-
beds in “ Jugend-Stil,” and, instead of repeating
once more the eternal star pattern, allows the noto-
rious “ Belgian line ” to disturb the wonted order-
liness of his beds. But it never enters his head
that this sort of thing only proves how irrational and
incapable of understanding the deeper meaning of
the movement he is when he sets himself against
these endeavours to put an end to unnatural,
ridiculous imitation. He swears by the naturalistic
garden. How ludicrous is the idea of trying to
imitate an endless stretch of landscape in a small
confined space does not occur to him, and the con-
tention that house and garden should be treated
as parts of a coherent whole seems to him absurd.
Often indeed it looks very much as though the
gardener, with his tortuous paths running this way
and that way, had taken pains to avoid contact with
the house wherever possible, as if wishing to
proclaim that house and garden are separate and
distinct. That the peculiarities of the site may
call for study, and that the form of the garden may
depend on the position of the house to which it is
an adjunct—such obvious considerations as these he
fails to grasp, and that is why he rises up in arms
against those who wish to bring about a change.
In years gone by the early pioneers in the arts
and crafts, after overcoming untold difficulties, had
297