Hermann Mattern (1902-71), without exaggeration, was Germany’s most important 20th century garden designer whose organic gardens were created alongside significant projects by e.g. Hans Scharoun. Mattern first worked for quite some time in nurseries (for plants) and later studied at the horticultural college of the Botanical Garden in Berlin-Dahlem. After graduating in 1927 he became head of the design department at Karl Foerster’s office in Potsdam-Bornim and quickly became known for taking up current developments in the field of garden design. Here he also met his later wife Herta Hammerbacher, herself a significant garden designer, and established the informal „Bornim Circle“, an important forum for the discussion of developments in garden design, plant breeding and also politics. Although Mattern wasn’t a particularly political person he sympathized with communism, just like his wife.
After the National Socialists came to power in 1933 these political leanings repeatedly caused him trouble: firstly because the regime classified him as „politically unsound“ and secondly because adversaries in the profession occasionally denounced him. But despite these repeated accusations Mattern fared well under the reign of the Nazis as he received significant commissions. Among these were the green areas alongside the Reichsautobahnen commissioned by the Organisation Todt, the private gardens of Albert Speer and Robert Ley and also his chief work, the 1939 Reichsgartenschau at the Killesberg in Stuttgart. In 1939 Mattern also became member of the NSDAP.
At this point Lars Hopstock’s new biography „Hermann Mattern - Idyll and Ideology“, recently published by Jovis Verlag, clarifies earlier and biased accounts provided by his widow Beate zur Nedden and his former student Vroni Heinrich: Mattern wasn’t an active opposition member but came to terms with the regime and advanced his career as the impressive list of works from the war years alone shows.
With this facts and source-based rebuttal of earlier accounts Hopstock doesn’t discount Mattern’s contribution to modern garden design but shows the ambiguity necessary to survive professionally in a totalitarian regime. At the same time he documents how Mattern advanced his idea of an organic modernism in garden architecture, even at the ideologically tainted Reichsgartenschau. Accordingly „Idyll and Ideology“ is a great achievement that based on the in-depth study of sources provides new insights into the life and work of an eminent garden designer. Wholeheartedly recommended!
