City Garden

General information:

The "Upper Rhine Crafts Exhibition" in 1887, which took place at that time on the Karlsplatz, the former parade and trade fair square, gave the impetus to create a sustainable urban garden. City gardener Schmöger (1874-1918) was commissioned by the City Council with the planning and execution in the same year the fair took place. A year later, the work was already completed. The new plant around the concert hall was provided with a music pavilion, an aquarium, fountains and lush flowerbeds.

More than 500 rose bushes of 250 different varieties were grouped around a semicircular hill. Children's playground was already established at that time. In between 1889 and 1895, the city acquired the western slope of the castle hill and developed it as a park with forest characteristic. During the First World War, maintenance was involuntarily neglected, so that remodelling was necessary from 1920 to 1924. This transformation had survived until the bombardment night in November 1944 during which the concert hall was destroyed.