Kassel: a green City in the centre of Germany

Located smack bang in the middle of Germany, Kassel is a city with 200,000 inhabitants situated in the north of the federal state of Hesse. The city was almost completely destroyed during the Second World War, so you will struggle to find many historic buildings However, Kassel more than makes up for it with its numerous public parks and woods which make it one of the greenest cities in Germany.

Kassel at a glance

 

Kassel by the river Fulda is the economic and cultural centre in northern Hesse and used to be the capital of Hesse for a long time. After the destructions of World War II the city was almost completely reconstructed in 1950s architecture and got the first pedestrian zone in Germany, the protected Treppenstraße. Today Kassel is famous for its hosting of the Documenta, one of the most important modern and contemporary art exhibitions in the world. Every 5 years world renowned artists display their work throughout the city in an event that lasts 100 days and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors throughout the world. Some of the former Documenta exhibits have even become permanent features in the city, most notably the 7,000 oaks by German artist Joseph Beuys, the first of which were planted at the Documenta 7 in 1982. When you stroll through the city you can recognize the trees, as they have basalt blocks placed next to the trunk.
Kassel is also an excellent city for transportation. Whilst many students bike around the small city, it also boasts an extensive and modern transportation network for those rainy days. Also, it is also linked into the German rail’s high speed train (ICE) network, making travelling to other parts of Germany quick and easy.

Overview of the universities

 

University of Kassel

Located close to the city centre on a former factory site, the main campus is an inviting place, with red brick buildings and a spacious cafeteria located just off a spacious square. Kassel, which has more than 21,000 students, offers a wide rage of courses and is a university that is international in its outlook, boasting more than 180 departmental cooperation agreements and 16 active university partnerships with higher education and research institutions from all over the world.
Kassel is also fast gaining a reputation for its courses at the Graduate Center for Environmental Studies, where students can take Master’s courses related to sustainability and environment.

School of Art and Design Kassel
The School of Art and Design Kassel enjoys the advantages that its location in the city that hosts the Documenta brings. Several distinguished artists, such as Johann Tischbein the Elder and Arnold Bode, the founder of the Documenta, have been employed as teachers at the school and it has a significant influence on the curricula of other art schools in Germany. It’s a top address and students from Kassel regularly win prizes.

Recreation in Kassel

 

The well-known Grimm Brothers studied in Kassel and also wrote some of their famous fairy tales here. That’s why Kassel is called Germanys Fairy Tale Capital. In the Museum of the Brothers Grimm you can learn about the lives of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm – the brothers that penned so many famous fairytales and are considered to be the founding fathers of the modern German studies with their studies on the German language.
So, it is no wonder that Kassel is the centrepiece of Germany’s Fairy Tale Road, a romantic tourist route stretching from Hanau to Bremen. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or Little Red Riding Hood are fairy tales that children know around the world and most of them have been penned in Kassel.
Also not to be missed is the Wilhelmshöhe, Europe’s largest hillside park, crowned by the city’s landmark, the statue of Hercules. It is undoubtedly the city’s main attraction, with the park’s lush lawns and collection of botanical treasures, you can spend many hours wondering around. Not to be missed are the fountains in the palace lake, which send up jets of water high into the sky.
Every autumn there are meeting anime and manga fans from all over Germany in Kassel at the Connichi, Germany’s largest anime convention that is organised by fans. Another curious thing about Kassel: it’s Europe’s racoon capital. More than 10,000 of these little bears are living in town. So, don’t wonder if you’ll meet one or two of them at night.

Useful links

 

The official website of Kassel in English
Kassel’s student union
The official tourist website of Kassel