Reconstruction and redevelopment of the park
The municipal park created according to the plans of the local architect Nicolas Wagener of Echternach (1924) is completely devastated during the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944-45. The Rococo pavilion lies in ruins.
From 1946 the town and landscape planner Henri Luja (1899-1977) oversees the reconstruction and redevelopment of the park of Echternach. He deliberately opted for an aesthetic solution close to the spirit of the pavilion’s construction period, by creating from scratch a “French-style” garden, in the late style of the Regency and Louis XV era. It is a rare late example of a historicist garden in European garden art. The revival garden retained the central axis of composition from the 1920s park, by tracing the main parterre aligned on the axis between the pavilion and the circular fountain basin (which he calls “rond d’eau”).
The fountain basin serves as a hinge for a secondary parterre towards the Sûre.
Despite the total rearrangement of the park, Henri Luja manages to preserve a substantial number of trees that survived the war undamaged. He also takes care to follow Nicolas Wagener’s idea (1924) to open the park onto the riverscape, by creating a new lime tree alley along the bend of the Sûre valley.
The new park design has a dual goal: to recreate the spatial and visual link between the park and the former abbey, and to integrate the park into the urban framework of Echternach.
The “French-style” garden (“Jardin à la française”)
The park intends to highlight the Rococo pavilion with its two parterres set in formal groves (“bosquets”). The two parterres, which are articulated around a circular fountain basin, are conceived in the manner of 18th- century English parterres, „à l’angloise”, - with large central turf carpets, framed by lateral flower borders.
The main parterre close to the pavilion is marked by a sculpted urn, set within a “palmette”, or shell, planted out in a box hedge embroidery (“broderie de buis”). The parterres are framed by formal groves, called “bosquets”, also conceived in the English manner (“à l’angloise”), with rows of chestnut trees and low trimmed hornbeam hedges.
Green garden rooms (“salons de verdure”; “cabinets de verdure ») are interspersed within the thickets of the groves, or at the intersection of the paths.
Henri Luja succeeds in energizing the relatively small space of the park thanks to a complex network of paths, thus creating an illusion of expanse. It also produces an effect of depth thanks to the chiaroscuro contrast between the parterres and the groves.
The municipal park of Echternach is a remarkable late revival garden in the “French style”, created in the first half of the 20th century.
Preliminary design by Henri Luja, May 5, 1946
Henri Luja, Layout of the Garden's Composition Axes, 1949
Main parterre with its embroidery (detail)
Postcard, c. 1950
Redesign of the park in the spirit of the 18th century (detail)
Main pavilion viewed from the upper landing of the pavilion's staircase, c. 1950–55