ABSTRACT
The Hamburg Stadtpark – ‘town park’ – was the prototypical Volkspark – ‘people’s park’. Conceived and constructed between 1900 and 1914, it represented a new model of public park for the rapidly growing urban population of a recently formed and increasingly industrialized nation at the beginning of a new century. The Volkspark was intended for active public recreation and as an expression of the spiritual unity and cultural identity of the German nation. It represented a significant break from the pastoral park that had become the norm in Europe and North America. The essence of Volksparks was that ‘they must provide large spaces for games of all sorts, which must be available to all . . . tree-lined avenues should enclose these sports grounds and lead to large areas of water . . . people of every social class will be able to gather to enjoy the delights of a place designed to compensate for the tracts of countryside eaten away by housing and industry, and to provide an oasis of peace in which to escape the pressures of the working week’ (in De Michelis 1991: 409). 1 The Stadtpark remains, at 151 hectares, the largest and most heavily used purpose-built public park in Hamburg, the second largest city in Germany.
