The place used for medical sunbathingis today shadowed by cherry trees. (source: Jana Liptáková)
Koch Garden, sprawling above the private brick-façade Koch Sanatorium on a steep slope in Bratislava’s Old Town, was inaccessible for long years. A fence overgrown with dense foliage did not allow even a small glimpse inside, unleashing people’s imagination about what is inside. When the Bratislava city council finally took it under ownership and reopened it to the public after basic maintenance, those interested found a wild, green oasis with a particular charm.
Koch Garden
protected national cultural monument
the entrance is from Bartoňova Street
open 14:00-20:00 during workdays and 11:00-20:00 during weekends
While the garden is only a shadow of what it used to be, the city now has a plan to give it back its lost beauty. The city will remove the elderly trees and pioneer woods, planting new ones. It plans to expose the place used for medical sunbathing, today shadowed by cherry trees, to the sun again. The swimming pool will also undergo reconstruction. But it will not serve for the bathing of patients like in the past, but become a home to water lilies.
“With a garden, we don’t take into account a year or two. We plant trees for 30, 40 or even 50 years,” Tamara Reháčková, who with Martina Majorošová co-authored the Koch Garden revitalisation project in terms of plants, explained their approach.
