Artful gardens in Brandenburg

Sanssouci Park is one of the most popular excursion destinations for people from Berlin and Potsdam, but also for the many visitors from abroad. Prussian King Frederick II had the rococo-style summer residence built in 1747. Since 1999, the park and palace have been included in the list of World Heritage Sites.

30 years after the death of Frederick II, the royal park around Sanssouci Palace was redesigned. Instead of the originally very straight hedges and paths, Lenne designed a concept with clusters of trees, curved paths and connected the park extensively with other Potsdam gardens.

The garden architect drew up the design himself: the "Plan of Sans-Soucis and Charlottenhof" in 1836. At that time, the cultural landscapes of Brandenburg and Berlin were already the center of his work.

As early as 1826 Lenne was commissioned by Frederick William III to create a "Russian Colony" as a "permanent monument" to Tsar Alexander I. At the same time, a visual object was to be created for an exemplary fruit culture in Prussia. Lenne designed the entire complex as an "art village". It consists of twelve farmsteads and a supervisor's house and is also a World Heritage Site.

Babelsberg Palace was built as a summer residence for the later Emperor Wilhelm I from 1833 to 1849 according to plans by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Lenne integrated his garden into the park landscape along the Havel river. But he soon had a falling out with Wilhelm I, who handed over the project to Lenne's fiercest competitor, Prince Pückler.

After 1842, Lenne designed the grounds around the Church of the Redeemer in Sacrow and the park of Sacrow Palace on the river Havel. Lenne often worked together with the architect of the church, Ludwig Persius. The church was built from 1841 to 1844 according to sketches by King Frederick William IV. He wanted it to be built in the shape of a ship.

In addition to the royal cultivated landscape on the banks of the Havel river, Lenne created around 120 rural parks between 1821 and 1840. The majority of them are located in Brandenburg, like the gardens at Liebenberg Castle, which were even described by the poet Theodor Fontane in his "Wanderings through the Province of Brandenburg".

In the Uckermark region, Lenne designed the English garden at Boitzenburg Castle. It is regarded as one of the largest and most beautiful castles in eastern Germany which earned it the title "Neuschwanstein of the East". For centuries, the castle was the ancestral seat of the von Arnim family, and in former East Germany it was used as a convalescent home. Today it is a hotel.

Lenne found his final resting place at the Bornstedt cemetery in Potsdam. His legacy includes over 100 highly representative parks throughout Germany — from the cultivated landscapes of Potsdam in Brandenburg to parks, gardens, canals and avenues in Berlin all the way to the Rose Island in Bavaria.