Flora und Botanischer Garten Köln

About

The Flora und Botanischer Garten Köln (11.5 hectares) is a municipal formal park and botanical garden located adjacent to Cologne Zoological Garden at Amsterdamer Straße 34, Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is open daily without charge. The garden dates to 1863 when a private company was organized to create Flora park (5.5 hectares) as a replacement for the city's older botanical garden near the Cologne Cathedral, which in 1857 was destroyed for construction of the central railway station.

This new park was designed by Peter Joseph Lenné in 1864 in a mixed German style, incorporating French Baroque, Italian Renaissance, and English landscape garden elements. In its center is a glass palace (orangery) structure of cast iron and glass patterned upon the Crystal Palace (London) and Jardin d'hiver (Paris), which served as an exhibition site through the late 19th century, including horticultural exhibitions in 1875 and 1888, and an industrial exhibition in 1889. Frauen-Rosenhof, an Art Nouveau garden, was added in 1906.

Between 1912 and 1914, as it suffered financial problems, the garden was acquired by the city, which in 1914 built an adjacent botanical garden (4.5 hectares...