Georg Kuphaldt – Wikipédia

Georg Friedrich Ferdinand Kuphaldt , born the June 6, 1853 in Plön and died the April 14, 1938 In Berlin, is a famous German landscape architect from the Wilhelminian era which was especially active in the Russian Empire before 1914.

Kuphaldt was born in the family of a high school teacher in the small town of Plön. After having received his baccalaureate, he studied landscaped art for two years at the Park of the Château d’Eutin, then at the Reutlingen Pomology Institute and at the Cologne Zoological Garden and finally at the Royal School of Landscape Art of Potsdam. He was appointed in 1878, after having successfully completed his exams, chief gardener of the district of Prignitz-de-’East (of) from the province of Brandenburg.

Kuphaldt was appointed at the age of twenty-seven director of the gardens of the city of Riga, then capital of the government of Livonia in Imperial Russia. For thirty-four years, he will draw and develop the new green spaces in the city and the province whose structures remain today. He notably expanded the oldest public garden in Riga, the Wöhrmann garden in 1881. He created most of the city’s green spaces and became one of the most popular landscapers in the court of Saint Petersburg, as well as of the Russian aristocracy and the German nobility of the Baltic. He thus draws on competitions ^{[ first ]} The garden at the fountain in front of the western facade of the Saint Petersburg winter palace (1895), and becomes thanks to this inspector of several imperial parks which he redeveloped, such as the Park of Oranienbaum, as in Nijni Novgorod. He also created the Dagomys imperial park next to Sochi. He also arranges the Tsarskoïe Selo park, the park of the castle of Catharinenthal near Reval (today Tallinn), the Esplanade de Riga (1902), the Arcadie Park (1909-1911) of Riga, part of the Riga forest cemetery, Pernau park, etc.

The “King of sugar” Leopold Koenig also commanded his Charovka park, in the government of Kharkov, and his son, Professor Alexander Koenig, that of the Château de Blücherhof in Mecklembourg. Certain parks that remain currently are visible today in ancient seigneurial areas of Baltic such as the Parc de Schagarren, the Park of the Château de Kechtel, that of the Château de Loal, the Ollustfer Manor, the Manoir de Wissust (of) , from the Château de Pollenhof, the Toila Castle belonging to the wealthy Grigori Elisseff (ru) (1899-1901), as well as the Libau park (today Liepaja), etc. Kuphaldt likes to acclimatize in these northern regions all kinds of trees, and even fruit trees. He also published on this subject in 1896 Rational fruit growing in the northwestern provinces of the Russian Empire: a manual of fruit culture for gardeners and garden friends . It is also called to creations in East Prussia, Wiesbaden, Heidelberg and Nice.

Kuphaldt married in Riga in 1884 Martha Kroepsch who gave him five children (Dora, Erika, Ingeborg, Hermann and Hans). The outbreak of the war of 1914-1918 brutally ended his career in Russia. He is even accused of spying time, because of the telescope he had installed at home and because of his membership in the German fleet league. It is arrested for almost five months and finally expelled.

He becomes in August 1915 Inspector of the Berlin-Steglitz gardens and he was appointed for the duration of the dean war of the landscaped art school in Dahlem. Before retiring at the age of seventy, Kuphaldt arranges the rose garden of Steglitz and the park of the Breitenbachplatz  (of) . He then devoted himself to the writing of works, as The practice of applied dendrology in the park and garden , published in 1927, and he was still at the origin of several dendrological plans in Berlin.

• (of) Georg Kuphaldt on his 75th birthday, in The garden world , N°22, 1928
• (of) Hemma Kannstein, Georg Kuphald’s parks in Riga. An example of historical open space design , Berlin, 1998
• (of) Heiko Merker, The Dendrological Park Blücherhof , Berlin, 1998

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