Goetheturm burned down this morning.

It's been a bad year for fires.  We mourn with Santa Rosa and all of Northern California.  

But today was a particularly sad day here in Frankfurt. 



Someone burned down the Goetheturm.

 

The Goetheturm was a huge timber structure tower built in the woods south of Frankfurt where Goethe loved to walk.  

The Goethe Tower (German: Goetheturm) was a 43-metre high public observation tower built entirely out of wood on the northern edge of Frankfurt City Forest located in Sachsenhausen (Frankfurt am Main). The tower was built in honour of German writer and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. 

In 1867, a wooden tower was first built on the site, at that time 22 metres tall. After the First World War, this first tower had become so rickety that it had to be pulled down.

In 1931, the Goethe Tower was rebuilt with money donated by the Jewish businessman Gustav Gerst. The opening ceremony took place in November 1931, shortly before the 1932 commemorations of Goethe's death one hundred years before. The city of Frankfurt provided the wood for the tower - altogether more than 340m³ of pine, beech, and oak timber.

The Goethe Tower remained a popular place for day-trippers, especially families, as a large playground and a café were built at the foot of the tower.

From the top you could see the whole city and all the way to the Taunus Mountains if the day was clear.

  

We climbed it at least twice and enjoyed biking through the woods around its base.

You can read the newspaper accounts Here and Here  and video here

And this is not the first loss in Frankfurt this year. The Goetheturm is the third structure in Frankfurt's green parks have burnt down within six months.  All three are places we have enjoyed riding our bikes to and enjoying the beauty.

The 4,800-square-metre Korean Garden (Koreanischer Garten) in the Grüneburg Park (Grüneburgpark) originated as part of South Korea’s presentation as the guest of honour at the 2005 Frankfurt Book Fair, and was a gift to the city of Frankfurt am Main. This exotic treasure has been designed in the style of traditional Korean scholars’ gardens, which since the 16th century have served as havens for artists and intellectuals. The garden should therefore also be a refuge for resting and meditation for residents of Frankfurt.

Next to two impressive pavilions, which were made from Korean materials, there are two square ponds with round islands. Each element in the design has a serious symbolic meaning and corresponds to Far Eastern philosophies. This also relates to the selection of plants, since, for example, pines, bamboo trees and plum trees are symbols of long life.

The arrangement of the Korean Garden reflects the four seasons from a philosophical point of view. The spring garden is located right in the main entry area. Here scholars not only await the springtime reawakening of nature, but also sometimes the arrival of their guests. The summer garden, with a “morning dew pavilion” built on wooden columns, offers recuperation and relaxation with its large pond. In the Korean tradition, it is meant to be a place for the meeting between man and nature. The autumn garden is in the highest position, and allows for a comprehensive view of autumnal nature. The winter garden has a small pond and also contains the “plum arbour pavilion”, where people can meet to talk, warmed by the traditional “Ondol” floor-heating system.

In this way, this impressive gift from the Koreans to their hosts brings Frankfurt residents closer to the “Land of Morning Calm” during each season of the year.

At the beginning of May, the morning dew pavilion in the Korean Garden in the Grüneburgpark in Frankfurt's Westend was also completely burned down. 



At the beginning of June, a fire destroyed the Chinese pavilion at Bethmannpark in Frankfurt's Nordend district.

A peaceful place to rest/In the silence one finds the strength for new thought”, this is what is written in calligraphy on a table at the water pavilion of the Chinese Garden (Chinesischer Garten) in Bethmann Park (Bethmannpark). And this exceptional place does indeed radiate a special calm and an East Asian aesthetic. Surrounded by thick walls and shielded from the hectic pace of the city, the garden has been constructed according to the model of the Shiukou Gardens in Huizhou. The buildings are in the style of simple homes from the Anhui province. Over a period of only 5 months of construction, in 1989 a 4,000-square-metre “spring flower site” was created here with 22 landscape views, a marble bridge, various pavilions, a large pond and even a waterfall. The specialists and craftsmen who created this exotic garden world also came from China, as did most of the precious materials used in its construction.

The origin of Chinese garden culture can be found in Taoism. The requirement that wise hermits go to the cities to fulfil their obligations supposedly led to the idea of transferring landscapes to gardens. In this way, the harmony of the world with a balanced relationship of the “seven parts” (earth, heaven, water, stone, buildings, animals and plants) is to be illustrated. Hence the typical defining elements such as the honorary arch, the wooden “bridge of the half boat”, the “jasper green pond”, the “water pavilion of the purified heart” and the traditional zig-zag bridge can be found in Frankfurt’s Chinese Garden.