Seminaarinmäki gardens

Seminaarinmäki garden

 

The planning of a school garden began at an early stage while building the Jyväskylä Teacher Seminary in the 1880s, and it provided a basis for the entire park area. Inspired by school garden ideology, the Helsinki city gardener L. A. Jernström created a garden plan for the Teacher Seminary area, including both useful and ornamental plants.

Knowledge of horticulture and awareness of the possibilities of one’s own garden in food production spread with the Seminary students to different parts of Finland. The Seminary garden served as an example for other school gardens in the country as well as for gardening in general. All the residents of Jyväskylä could actually enjoy the products of the Seminary garden because the crops were sold in the city until the 1960s, in addition to being used in Seminaarinmäki canteens.

The park of the Teacher Seminary represented the romantic, natural landscape park with English and German influences: freely growing lawn, large trees, serpentine paths, ponds, and gazebos. In the 1930s the park as a whole was regarded as the most beautiful in Jyväskylä. As more buildings were constructed in the 1950s and particularly in the 1970s, the role of greenery in instruction decreased and the size of the park shrank. In 1990, a botanical garden of 36 hectares was formed of all the green areas of the University of Jyväskylä. The University Museum maintains a register of all the plants in the area. Seminaarinmäki can be considered to be the core of the botanical garden.

Liito-oravaThe species planted in the garden before 1934 – in other words, most of the flora in the area – are regarded as the traditional species of Seminaarinmäki Park.

Rowan trees, bird cherries, birches and Norway maples grow on the campus, and some of them have been sown naturally. Further traditional trees species include little-leaved linden, wych elm, ash, Siberian fir, silver fir, larch, Siberian pine, and pine. Several signature trees grow in the park.

The most significant of them are the ‘Cygnaeus oak’ north of the University gate, planted in honour of the centenary of Uno Cygnaeus’ birth in 1910, and the ‘Seminary spruce’ in the middle of the road leading to the Main Building, which was planted to commemorate the Teacher Seminary in 1937. The old park is known to house the Siberian flying squirrel, a strictly protected species.

Development and restoration works began in the Seminaarinmäki Park area in 2012. The planning by Maisemasuunnittelu Hemgård Oy was based on historical, landscaping and environmental surveys. The oldest part of the park was restored first..

Aalto Park by Alvar Aalto and Onni Savonlahti 1952–1971

The college building complex designed by architect Alvar Aalto was constructed on Seminaarinmäki and its adjacent field between 1954 and 1959. The area was complemented in 1964 by Ilokivi, the building of the Student Union. The campus designed by Aalto comprises a horseshoe-shaped area opening to the south-west, surrounded by red brick buildings that harmonise with the old Seminaarinmäki buildings. The red brick structures in the area are complemented by the white plastered building of the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences built in 1971.

In the middle of this campus, there is a sports ground, surrounded by a park called Aalto Park, whose design and flora represent the ideals of park planning at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s.

Puisto

Aallon puisto 1970-luvulla.

Puiston peruskasveja ovat koristeomenapuut ja kookkaat pensaat, kuten syreenit ja heisit. Alkuperäisen suunnitelman mukaan puistoon piti istuttaa vain valkokukkaisia lajeja. Omenapuiden lisäksi muita lehtipuita puistossa ovat vaahterat, pihlajat ja jalavat. Vuorimänty edustaa puiston ainoaa ulkomaista havupuulajia. Rakennusten lähettyvillä on matalakasvuisia pensaita ja pensasruusulajeja. Urheilukentän kohdalla Aalto teki harvinaisen ratkaisun, sillä hän halusi puita istutettavan myös kentälle. Aallon puistoon olennaisesti kuuluvat polut muodostavat mutkittelevan verkoston. Alkuperäisestä suunnitelmasta poiketen polkuverkostoa jouduttiin pelkistämään pian valmistumisensa jälkeen, sillä opiskelijoilla oli taipumus kulkea puistossa oikoteitä myöten.

Nurmikon kunnostusPäärakennuksen lounaispuolen seremonia-aukio suunniteltiin opetus- ja juhlatilaisuuksia varten. Tähän käyttötarkoitukseen viittaa myös metsän puolelle sijoitettu puolikaaren muotoinen ulkokatsomo, joka on tehty puu- ja kivipenkeistä. Katsomon kivipenkit ovat purettujen puisten seminaarirakennusten peruskiviä. Seremonia-aukio suunniteltiin päärakennuksen toisella puolella olevan etuaukion, Alvarin aukion, vastapainoksi.

 

Seremonia-aukion viereinen nurmiportaikko kunnostettiin kesällä 2019.