22) Mountain

Attiret, a French missionary priest in Beijing reports in 1743 on the large imperial Garden of the Gardens, a flamboyant aberration and delight, where several mountains are artificially constructed. Streams and canals meander in between, forming lakes that extend like a sea. The shores are full of hand-crafted rocks. The mountains are covered with elaborate forests. Everything looks wildly authentic. A fantasy of natural disorder and asymmetry.

Johann Heinrich Gustav Meyer, a scholar of J.P. Lenné, in 1873 produces a manual on artful natural composition. One of the chapters is called: “Allgemeine Grundsätze für die Anordnung unregelmäßiger Partien von einem Hauptstadtpunkte aus”. He offers precise directives on the reproduction of seemingly natural compositions of decrepit trees, cragged mountains, convoluted ponds engulfed with exploding vegetation. It is all about character, attitude and mood – he explains. Haltung.  “So besteht die formale Haltung […] in dem richtigen Großenverhältnis der Teile oder Massen an sich und zueinander, in deren organischer übereinstimmender Gliederung und ihrem Zusammenhang […].”

The Command Tower, also called Small Tiergarten Bunker, south of the huge Zoo Bunker, was detonated in 1952, leaving a considerable mountain of concrete rubble facing the Neuer See. It was then separated from all the rest by a canal dug around it. The only connecting bridge was demolished in the mid ’80s. This is the only existing mountain here, wild woods grew intricate, concealing, a lair for many creatures, secret and unnoticed.

Attiret, a French missionary priest in Beijing reports in 1743 on the large imperial Garden of the Gardens, a flamboyant aberration and delight, where several mountains are artificially constructed. Streams and canals meander in between, forming lakes that extend like a sea. The shores are full of hand-crafted rocks. The mountains are covered with elaborate forests. Everything looks wildly authentic. A fantasy of natural disorder and asymmetry.

Johann Heinrich Gustav Meyer, a scholar of J.P. Lenné, in 1873 produces a manual on artful natural composition. One of the chapters is called: “Allgemeine Grundsätze für die Anordnung unregelmäßiger Partien von einem Hauptstadtpunkte aus”. He offers precise directives on the reproduction of seemingly natural compositions of decrepit trees, cragged mountains, convoluted ponds engulfed with exploding vegetation. It is all about character, attitude and mood – he explains. Haltung.  “So besteht die formale Haltung […] in dem richtigen Großenverhältnis der Teile oder Massen an sich und zueinander, in deren organischer übereinstimmender Gliederung und ihrem Zusammenhang […].”

The Command Tower, also called Small Tiergarten Bunker, south of the huge Zoo Bunker, was detonated in 1952, leaving a considerable mountain of concrete rubble facing the Neuer See. It was then separated from all the rest by a canal dug around it. The only connecting bridge was demolished in the mid ’80s. This is the only existing mountain here, wild woods grew intricate, concealing, a lair for many creatures, secret and unnoticed.