A special treasure within the Botanical Garden is the Chinese Garden Qian Yuan, a classical southern Chinese scholar's garden donated to the Ruhr University in 1990 by our partner university, the Tongji University of Shanghai.
When this fragile construction turned out to have suffered severe damage from our harsh climate within a few years, the Chinese Garden Society was founded in 2000 to prevent the imminent razing of the building and to collect donations for its renovation. After the Garden was reopened in October 2001 the Society remained in existence and now pursues two important goals:
- to keep an eye open for new structural damage and to organize and assist in financing necessary repairs and maintenance work in coordination and cooperation with the Botanical Garden;
- to acquaint the public with the Chinese Garden and its affairs by means of guided tours and other cultural events.
The Chinese Garden has reopened
Because the Chinese Garden, despite its narrow passages, is well ventilated and cannot really be considered to be an enclosed space, the administration of the Botanical Garden recently decided to reopen the Chinese Garden to the public, although corona restrictions are otherwise still in effect.
Guided Tours
Because of the coronavirus pandemic we unfortunately had to cancel our usual program of guided tours through the Chinese Garden in 2020 and this year as well. However, we hope that in 2022 we will again be able to offer the full program of guided tours in the accustomed manner. As soon as we can say more, you will find an announcement on this spot.
Flyer
Our flyer about the Chinese Garden and the Society (unfortunately only available in German) was last updated in 2014. You can download it below and either read it on the screen or print it out double-sided on a DIN A4 sheet and fold it into thirds parallel to the shorter side to obtain the original format.
To comply with the European General Data Protection Regulation, the membership application contained in the flyer can no longer be accepted. If you would like to become a member (which would please us very much), please download the current version, in German, via the link in the right-hand column.
