Bessungen: Gardens, Village Life & Forest Art

Prinz-Emil-Garten (Darmstadt) — Darmstadt 2006 50

Photo: derbrauni / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Welcome to Bessungen. Our walk begins in Prince Emil Garden and follows changing ideas of nature: a private landscape made public, a village church, formal court gardens and, finally, art in the forest. Look for the small garden palace and the pond. This is the Prinz-Emil-Garten, a different place from the Prinz-Georg-…

Darmstadt-Bessunger-Kirche

Photo: Störfix / Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 de

From the Prince Emil Garden, we follow the path toward the older heart of Bessungen, where the village church stands. Here the idea of nature changes. Instead of a landscape arranged for pleasure, we find woodland that was owned, used, and governed. In 1002, the German king Henry II confirmed to Bishop Burchard of Worm…

Darmstadt Bessunger Orangeriegarten

Photo: Oberlehrer70 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

From the church, a short walk brings us to the Orangerie, where the idea of nature shifts again. Here it was arranged for the court. The building was begun around 1720 under Landgrave Ernst Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt, who had the planning set in motion in 1716. Its architect, Louis Remy de la Fosse, designed it as a win…

Internationaler Waldkunstpfad (Darmstadt) — Waldkunst Darmstadt Ludwigshoehe 1

Photo: Erkaha / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

At the Waldkunstpfad, our route reaches the forest. We have moved from a landscape garden to a village church and a formal Orangerie. Here, artists work with the woodland itself. The International Forest Art Path has developed through exhibitions organised by the Verein für Internationale Waldkunst since 2002. Artists …