Former Potsdam Garden Director Supports Teaching for Future Landscape Architects in Hanover in the Summer Semester 2025
At the Institute of Landscape Architecture in Hanover, there is great pleasure at the return of Michael Rohde to Leibniz Universität Hannover. For the trained gardener, landscape architect, and state-certified expert in landscape conservation, the university in the capital of Lower Saxony marked the starting point of a long career spanning academia and professional practice. From April 1994 to December 2004, he worked there as a research associate, completed his doctorate in 1998 on Eduard Petzold, and lectured on the subject of historic garden conservation. His professional career led him to the position of Garden Director of the Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, where for exactly 20 years he was responsible for the management of 15 parks and gardens covering approximately 750 hectares. He left this post at the end of 2024 and will now contribute to research and teaching in the summer semester of 2025, working alongside the Chair of the History of Landscape Architecture and Historic Garden Conservation, Prof. Dr Inken Formann.
With the support of the Lieselotte Scheuermann Foundation and the VGH Foundation
Prof. Dr. Rohde’s appointment at Leibniz University Hannover, with a focus on garden conservation sciences, is funded by the Lieselotte Scheuermann Foundation (Mrs Scheuermann is an alumna of LUH and a native of Hanover) and the VGH Foundation (Hanover). A publication is scheduled for preparation within the next year, and several teaching formats will be offered in the field of History of Landscape Architecture and Historic Garden Conservation. In June and August 2025, two five-day “Intensive Courses in Historic Garden Conservation” will take place in the listed gardens of the Faculty of Architecture and Landscape as well as in the four Herrenhäuser Gärten. A total of 60 students will participate, learning about and discussing the qualities and planning challenges of Hanover’s urban green spaces directly on site. In addition, on 10 July 2025 at 5:30 pm, the specialist in historic gardens will give a lecture entitled “Current Challenges in Garden Preservation” at the Berggartenhaus as part of the “Sommerakademie Herrenhausen” programme organised by the Friends of the Herrenhausen Gardens.
Focus on climate change
Alongside his work at the former academic home of the garden historian Dieter Hennebo (1923–2007), who set benchmarks for this field in Germany, Rohde holds an honorary professorship at Technische Universität Berlin in garden art and monument preservation. The 65-year-old native of Lower Saxony has frequently worked as an independent landscape architect on the preparation of park management plans. He has also distinguished himself as the author and editor of numerous publications. Most recently, in 2020, a collected volume stemming from a large-scale research project was published. The book Historic Gardens and Society. Culture – Nature – Responsibility (Schnell & Steiner) adopts an interdisciplinary and international perspective to underscore the value of protected green cultural heritage, while also articulating concerns about damage to garden heritage that is primarily attributable to climate change.
