Memorials come in many forms including cemeteries, memorial walls, and memorial buildings. Memorials are even present in places that are designated as memorials. The Cleveland Cultural Gardens is one such place. The Cleveland Cultural Gardens were established in 1916 with the creation of the Shakespeare Gardens, now the British Gardens. In the 108 years since that first garden was established, 35 more have been created including the German Cultural Garden (1929), the Estonian Cultural Garden (1966), and the Vietnamese Garden (2020). Several other gardens, including a Native American Garden and a Peruvian Garden are under development.
Each garden is designed and funded by the ethnic community for which they are named. It is always interesting to me to walk among the older gardens and think about the time in which they were created. For instance, the German Garden was founded in 1929, the year of the market crash the preceded the Great Depression and four years before Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. The African American Cultural Garden was founded in 1977 at a time when African Americans were still battling for civil rights.
The Cultural Gardens are a celebration of world culture, especially those groups that settled in Cleveland, and many of the gardens celebrate cultural icons from their home countries. For instance, the Italian Cultural Garden celebrates Michelangelo and Renaissance Architect Andrea Palladeo and the German Cultural Garden celebrates Bach and Mozart. Other gardens, including the Hungarian Cultural Garden, celebrate the war dead from their community.
As the Cultural Gardens are one of my favorite places to explore, I will be periodically exploring some of the individual gardens and posting about the memorials within their borders.