Viktoriapark
Encyclopedia
Urban park
An urban park, is also known as a municipal park or a public park, public open space or municipal gardens , is a park in cities and other incorporated places to offer recreation and green space to residents of, and visitors to, the municipality...
in the district
Boroughs and localities of Berlin
Berlin is both a city and one of Germany’s federal states. It is made up of twelve boroughs , each with its own borough government, though all boroughs are subject to Berlin’s city and state government.-History:Each borough is made up of several officially recognized localities...
of Kreuzberg
Kreuzberg
Kreuzberg, a part of the combined Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte since 2001, is one of the best-known areas of Berlin...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
It is situated on the northern slope of the Teltow moraine
Moraine
A moraine is any glacially formed accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris which can occur in currently glaciated and formerly glaciated regions, such as those areas acted upon by a past glacial maximum. This debris may have been plucked off a valley floor as a glacier advanced or it may have...
plateau overlooking the glacial valley with Berlin's city centre. The major landmark of the park is a cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
monument dedicated by King Frederick William III of Prussia
Frederick William III of Prussia
Frederick William III was king of Prussia from 1797 to 1840. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel .-Early life:...
to the "liberation battles" (Befreiungskriege) of the War of the Sixth Coalition
War of the Sixth Coalition
In the War of the Sixth Coalition , a coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, Spain and a number of German States finally defeated France and drove Napoleon Bonaparte into exile on Elba. After Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia, the continental powers...
fought at the end of the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
. It provides an excellent viewpoint over much of the central and southern portions of the city. In summer an artificial waterfall originates at the foot of the monument and continues down the hillside to the intersection of Großbeerenstraße and Kreuzbergstraße.
A historic wine-growing area, the park today again includes a small vineyard, where the local "Kreuz-Neroberger" wine is cultivated from grapevines donated by Kreuzberg's twin towns Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...
and Ingelheim am Rhein
Ingelheim am Rhein
Ingelheim am Rhein is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany on the Rhine’s west bank. The town calls itself the Rotweinstadt and since 1996 it has been Mainz-Bingen’s district seat....
. About 600 bottles are pressed each year.
History
The park was originally opened in 1821 when the NeoclassicalNeoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
Nationaldenkmal by architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel
Karl Friedrich Schinkel
Karl Friedrich Schinkel was a Prussian architect, city planner, and painter who also designed furniture and stage sets. Schinkel was one of the most prominent architects of Germany and designed both neoclassical and neogothic buildings.-Biography:Schinkel was born in Neuruppin, Margraviate of...
was inaugurated at the top of the 66 m (216.5 ft) promontory west of the road to Tempelhof
Tempelhof
Tempelhof is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg. It is the location of the former Tempelhof Airport, one of the earliest commercial airports in the world. It is now deserted and shows as a blank spot on maps of Berlin. Attempts are being made to save the still-existing...
, then known as Tempelhofer Berg. The hill adopted the name Kreuzberg from the Iron Cross
Iron Cross
The Iron Cross is a cross symbol typically in black with a white or silver outline that originated after 1219 when the Kingdom of Jerusalem granted the Teutonic Order the right to combine the Teutonic Black Cross placed above a silver Cross of Jerusalem....
(Eisernes Kreuz) at the top of the monument, it became the name giver of the Kreuzberg borough created by the 1920 Greater Berlin Act
Greater Berlin Act
The Greater Berlin Act , in full the Law Regarding the Reconstruction of the New Local Authority of Berlin , was a law passed by the Prussian government in 1920 that greatly expanded the size of the German capital of Berlin.-History:...
.
As the surrounding area incorporated into Berlin in 1861 had become a densely built-up suburb, the police president decreed a maximum height of buildings in the adjacent streets to uphold the visibility of the monument. The ordinance however was annulled by the groundbreaking 1882 "Kreuzberg judgement" of the Prussian administrative court
Administrative court
Greece, as a civil law country has administrative courts. The establishment of those courts can be found in article 94 of the Constitution of the Hellenic Republic 1975, as revised in 2001. The administrative courts are composed from districts Courts of First Instance, district Courts of Appeal and...
, stating that the police had exceeded its authority to ensure public security
Public security
To meet the increasing challenges in the public security area, responsible public institutions and organisations can tap into their own intelligence to successfully address possible threats in advance...
.
A re-design in 1888 by then city parks director Hermann Mächtig resulted in the current mountainesque character including the construction of the 24 m (78.7 ft) waterfall modeled on the Podgórnej waterfall (Hainfall) in the Karkonosze
Karkonosze
Krkonoše is a mountain range located in the north of the Czech Republic and the south-west of Poland, part of the Sudetes mountain system . The Czech-Polish border, which divides the historic regions of Bohemia and Silesia, runs along the main ridge...
mountain range. The water is pumped to the top of the hill and finally received in a small pool adorned with a bronze sculpture - fisherman and mermaid - designed by Ernst Herter in 1896.
Between 1913 and 1916, the western section of the park was significantly expanded by landscape architect Albert Brodersen. The extension included the layout of a playing field, the present-day Katzbach Stadium, homeground of the Türkiyemspor Berlin
Türkiyemspor Berlin
Türkiyemspor Berlin is German association football club from Berlin. The club began in 1978 as a loose association of young footballers playing recreationally as Kreuzberg Gençler Birliği , named after the Berlin district of Kreuzberg...
football club.