Wohnhaus Karl Foerster

Wohnhaus Karl Foerster stands in Potsdam’s Bornim district, where a country house meets an intensively planted garden. Its architecture follows the country house style of its time and settles naturally among the greenery. The garden presents hardy perennials, grasses, ferns and dwarf shrubs in combinations designed to flower throughout the year.

Karl Foerster developed this garden from 1911 as both a display ground and an experimental setting for plant breeding. The 45-by-25-metre sunken garden forms its centre, with symmetrical beds, a pond and surrounding boxwood hedges. Nearly sixty years of residence and work connected the house closely with these horticultural experiments. Bornim became a centre of the new garden movement during the early twentieth century, while Foerster’s ideas influenced gardeners and landscape designers worldwide. The grounds gained memorial status in 1981 and expanded in 2018 to include the nursery, now called Foerster Stauden GmbH.

Original furnishings remain inside, alongside a library and archive documenting Karl, Eva and Marianne Foerster’s work. The pond, held within clipped boxwood and geometric planting, gives the sunken garden its clearest architectural focus.