Monday, July 21, 2014

Germans are Funny

I can tell you all I like that Germans are fun and they're funny but you'll be wanting to see some evidence, I imagine.

This evidence is in the Englischer Garten in Munich (bigger than Central Park in NYC) which was designed by Sir Benjamin Thompson who has a remarkable history.

It is not known, as of this writing, whether this 'evidence' was part of Sir Benjamin's original vision or it, um, grew from a later time.

Herewith, the evidence:




Who needs a solid-gold Cadillac when you can get one of these!


I have a secondary theory that I think would be worth pursuing a little in that Germany seems to do the most and always has to create greenspace in a city.  I'm wondering how much urban parks evolved in general from this base.  I haven't looked too much at France but I imagine they were pretty good at it too.  I don't know if English are so good at really big parks whereas they are spectacularly good at small ones, particularly for home gardens.

So, yah, that would be the anthropological theory of park evolution.  I think there could be something interesting in that in terms of things we forget:  tribalism, our need for green, etc, etc.

(Doubtless someone has already written on this so it's just a matter of finding it.)

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