Peter Joseph Lenné

Peter Joseph Lenné (the Younger) (29 September 1789 – 23 January 1866) was a Prussian gardener and landscape architect. As director general of the Royal Prussian palaces and parks in Potsdam and Berlin, his work shaped the development of 19th-century German garden design in the Neoclassical style. Laid out according to the principles of the English landscape garden, his parks are now World Heritage Sites.

Life and works Lenné was born in Bonn, then part of the Electorate of Cologne, the son of the court and university gardener Peter Joseph Lenné the Elder (1756–1821), and his wife, Anna Catharina Potgieter (also Potgeter), daughter of the mayor of Rheinberg. The Lenné family originated from the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. Circa 1665, Peter Joseph's ancestor Augustin Le Neu had settled in Poppelsdorf near Bonn as court gardener of Archbishop-Elector Maximilian Henry of Bavaria.

Childhood and development Having obtained his Abitur degree, Peter Joseph Lenné decided to adopt the family tradition. He began his apprenticeship as a gardener in 1808 with his uncle, Josef Clemens Weyhe, court gardener at the electoral Augustusburg and Falkenlust Palaces, Brühl. At the instigation of his father, he also took university courses in botany.

From 1809 to 1812, his father paid for Lenné's many study trips to France, Switzerland, and Southern Germany. In 1811, he completed a long internship in Paris with , who was then one of the most famous garden architects in Europe. This made him a master landscaper. On another of these trips, Lenné made the acquaintance of the creator of the English Garden in Munich, the landscape gardener Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell, who would have a lasting influence on Lenné's work.

Assistant gardener

In 1812, Lenné followed his father to Koblenz, where he had been named Director of the Gardens by the Prefect Jules Doazan. Later in that year, Lenné became active at Schloss Schönbrunn, where he would remain until 1814. He then returned to Koblenz, where he was given private garden commissions until 1815. Extensions to the city's fortifications gave him an opportunity to propose a plan for its beautification by the addition of gardens; however, this was not carried out because of lack of funds. In 1816, he returned to Potsdam at the suggestion of Prussian forestry official Georg Ludwig Hartig and General Graf von Hacke. There he received the position of Assistant Gardener to the Court Garden Director at Sanssouci.

Despite centering his life around Potsdam and Berlin, Lenné remained attached to his Rhenish homeland and contributed to the further beautification of Koblenz, particularly in the Rheinanlagen, which was under his management until 1861. His love of his work on the Rhine and Mosel made him decide to build the residence named for him, the Lenné-Haus, in which he wished to spend the evening of his life; however, the manner of his death did not allow this. Lenné's last resting place is at the Bornstedt Cemetery in Potsdam.

Busts of Peter Joseph Lenné are located at the Botanical Garden, Bonn, on the bank of the Rhine (Alter Zoll), in the Landschaftspark Petzow that he himself designed, in Feldafing Park, in Park Sanssouci, and in the Kaiserin-Augusta-Anlagen in Koblenz (copy of a bust by Rauch). A recent bust was finished by Bad Homburg sculptor Otto Weber-Hartl.