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Gustav Ammann (9 July 1885 – 23 March 1955) was a Swiss landscape architect who worked in the modernist style and influenced garden architecture in Switzerland. He has worked on over 1,700 projects, notable amongst which is the namesake Gustav-Ammann-Park in Zürich.[1]
Ammann, who grew up in a middle-class environment, was the son of the president of the Bürgli District Court in Zurich-Enge. He attended the Cantonal Commercial School, Zurich, but left his federal diploma in favor of an apprenticeship with the notable landscaping company run by Leopold Frobel, from 1903 to 1905. He was then employed at the Zurich Botanical Garden and attended lectures by its director, Hans Schinz, who also served as a professor of botany at the University of Zurich.[1][2]
In 1907, he left for Germany where he worked with Reinhold Hoemann, a proponent of the reformist architectural style. He studied at the Magdeburg School of Arts and Crafts between 1905 and 1911.[3] From 1909 to 1911, he worked at the offices of notable landscaping architects including with Franz Paetz (Düsseldorf), Ludwig Lesser - known for the namesake park (Berlin), and Jacob Ochs (Hamburg) where German landscape artist Leberecht Migge later became the artistic director.
From 1911 until the company was dissolved in 1933, Ammann was chief garden architect at the company of Otto Froebel and Heirs, where he trained the Austrian-American architect Richard Neutra as a gardener's apprentice, and later the landscape architect Ernst Cramer.[4] In those years, he was also associated with the Schweizerischer Werkbund (translated as Swiss Werkbund).[1]
In 1934, Ammann set up his studio in Zurich. He frequently collaborated with notable Swiss architects of the time, including Max Frisch, Max Ernst Haefeli, Werner Max Moser, Rudolf Steiger, and members of the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM).[1] Ammann was President of the Swiss Federation of Garden Designers (BSG) and the Secretary General of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA).[2]
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Ammann was affiliated with many projects across Switzerland, designing their gardens and landscapes.
- Villa of the silk industrialists Bodmer und Hürlimann, Ottenbach (1914)
- Architecture garden at the Werkbund, Bern (1917)[1]
- Neubühl residential project, Zürich (1930–1932)[4]
- Park of the Kilchberg Sanatorium, Kilchberg (1931–1932)
- Freibad Allenmoos open-air swimming pool, Zürich (1936–1939)[1]
- Gardens for the Swiss National Exhibition, Zurich (1939)[4][1]
- Wohlfahrtsgarten der Firma Bührle – present day Gustav-Amman Park, designed with Robert Winkler, Oerlikon (1942)[3]
- Winterthur Cantonal Hospital and University Hospital, Zurich (1942–1953)[2]
- Landscape of the Zurich Airport, Kloten (1946–1949)[5]
- Freibad Letzigraben open-air swimming pool, designed with Max Frisch, Zürich (1947–1949)[2][1]
- Heiligfeld residential colony, designed with city architect Albert H. Steiner, Zurich (completed 1955)[6]
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Ammann's gardening and landscaping ideologies have been the subject of multiple publications.
- Yvonne Aellen et al.: Parkanlagen in Neu-Oerlikon: Oerliker Park, MFO-Park, Louis-Häfliger-Park, Wahlenpark, Gustav-Ammann-Park. Grün Stadt Zürich (Hrsg.), Zürich 2004.
- Gustav Ammann: Blühende Gärten. Erlenbach-Zürich 1955.
- Annemarie Bucher: Vom Landschaftsgarten zur Gartenlandschaft: Gartenkunst zwischen 1880 und 1980 im Archiv für Schweizer Gartenarchitektur und Landschaftsplanung. vdf Hochschulverlag AG, Zürich 1996.
- Luc Lienhard: Ammann, Gustav. In: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz.
- Johannes Stoffler: Eine Blühende Badelandschaft. In: Ulrich Binder, Pierre Geering (Hrsg.): Freibad Letzigraben. Von Max Frisch und Gustav Ammann. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zürich 2007, ISBN 978-3-03823-378-7.
- Johannes Stoffler: Gustav Ammann. Landschaften der Moderne. gta Verlag, Zürich 2008, ISBN 978-3-85676-194-3.
- Udo Weilacher: Visionäre Gärten. Die modernen Landschaften von Ernst Cramer. Birkhäuser, Basel/Berlin/Boston 2001, ISBN 3764365684.
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