Ausstellungskatalog - Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum ...
Ausstellungskatalog - Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum ...
Ausstellungskatalog - Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum ...
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Standorte · Locations<br />
Dahlem<br />
‘The plot of land that I took into consideration constitutes a rectangle,<br />
which is bo<strong>und</strong>ed to the north by the Steglitz-Dahlemer<br />
Strasse, to the north east by the Steglitz Fichtenberg, to the south<br />
east by the Potsdamer Chaussee and to the west by the estates of<br />
the Dahlem domain.’ This was how Ignatz Urban had described<br />
the location favoured by him for the new Botanic Garden back in<br />
1888. The approximately 40 hectare, clayey site on the sheltered<br />
slope of the Fichtenberg was part of the Dahlem crown estate, but<br />
the existing lease agreements could be terminated at any time for<br />
public construction projects.<br />
At this point rural Steglitz lay some distance away from the city<br />
gates, yet the Fichtenberg was already lined with imposing country<br />
houses built for well-to-do town-dwellers, and 25 trains a day ran<br />
to Berlin from the station at Albrechtstrasse.<br />
In October 1895, after considering different locations in Tiergarten,<br />
Grunewald and Treptow, the Finance Ministry and the<br />
Education Ministry finally agreed on Dahlem. This decision suited<br />
the purposes of Friedrich Althoff, who wanted to use the new<br />
buildings of the Botanic Garden and Botanical <strong>Museum</strong> as well<br />
as the Pharmaceutical Institute as the nucleus of his ‘Dahlem<br />
Project’. In the following years the far-sighted science policy-maker<br />
oversaw the relocation of further Berlin University natural science<br />
facilities to Dahlem, and in 1901 he succeeded in transforming<br />
the entire domain into a building site, thus creating a centre for<br />
science that came to be known as the ‘German Oxford’. Villa colo-<br />
Postkarte, um 1970. Heimatverein Steglitz e.V.<br />
45<br />
nies grew up rapidly aro<strong>und</strong> the Botanic Garden, as well as numerous<br />
scientific agencies, university institutes and finally, from<br />
1911, several institutes of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft (Kaiser<br />
Wilhelm Society). The city had crept up on the garden once again.<br />
With the fo<strong>und</strong>ing of Berlin’s Freie Universität in 1948 and the<br />
transfer to Dahlem of significant holdings of Berlin’s State <strong>Museum</strong>s<br />
(situated in the Soviet sector) from evacuation depots in the<br />
western occupation zones, Dahlem became the cultural and scientific<br />
centre of (West) Berlin during the Cold War. Today, southwest<br />
Berlin is among the most important centres for science in the<br />
German capital. KG