Court Garden

The Hofgarten is a protected park located on the edge of the Altstadt section of Innsbruck, Austria. The park covers an area of 10 hectares, and borders on the Hofburg, the Kongresshaus, and the Tyrolean State Theatre.

The Hofgarten was originally laid out on the site of a river meadow under the direction of Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria in the sixteenth century. At the time, it was one of the most elaborate gardens laid out north of the Alps. During its 600-year history, it was turned into a Renaissance garden, a French formal garden and, since 1858, an English landscape garden. Its last conversion was conceived by Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell, but carried out four decades later by an unknown landscape designer who deviated significantly from Sckell's original proposal.