Freiburg Seepark
Photo: Andreas Schwarzkopf / CC BY-SA 3.0, modified.
Overview
The Japanese Garden in Freiburg’s Seepark was created in 1990 as a gift from Freiburg’s Japanese partner city Matsuyama. Freiburg’s official visitor site states that it was planned by Japanese garden architect Yoshinori Tokumoto from Matsuyama and built by three Japanese and ten Freiburg gardeners.
History
Seepark itself was developed around the Flückigersee as part of Freiburg’s large park-making and urban-renewal work connected with the 1986 Landesgartenschau. The Japanese Garden, however, was not part of the original 1986 exhibition layer. It was added a few years later, after Freiburg and Matsuyama had established their city partnership.
Work on the garden began in autumn 1989 under Yoshinori Tokumoto, supported by three Japanese gardeners and up to ten Freiburg gardeners. The Freiburg gardeners also learned specialised Japanese garden maintenance techniques, including pruning, training and binding woody plants. The garden was opened on 5 May 1990, making it a concrete landscape expression of the Freiburg–Matsuyama partnership, not just a municipal “let’s add a lantern and call it culture” situation.
Design features
The garden covers about 3,500–3,600 m² and includes a waterfall, pond / water landscape, stones, Japanese-style planting, a small temple-like structure and a viewing element. It is designed as a compact Japanese stroll-and-contemplation garden within the larger Seepark landscape.
Garden elements
Bridges
Buildings
Enclosures
Waters and islands
Stones
Other elements
Current status
Extant public Japanese garden beside the Seepark in Freiburg. It remains freely accessible as part of the public park landscape.