Bayern

Heinrich Dietz, a key pioneer of landscape architecture in Lower Franconia, passed away on March 23, 2023, at the age of 92.

© Angelika Silberbach

Born on 18.09.1930 in Tübingen am Neckar, Heinrich Dietz completed his training as a gardener from 1955 to 1957 at the horticultural technician school in Freising-Weihenstephan. Afterwards he practiced with Hermann Thiele sen. in Nuremberg.

He built up his own business, the landscape architecture office "Heinrich Dietz", then "Heinrich and Irmgard Dietz" and later "Dietz and Partner", as the first freelance landscape architect in Lower Franconia, virtually from nothing and established landscape architecture in Lower Franconia. The young couple moved to Engenthal in the district of Bad Kissingen in 1959, where the office is still located today, because they fell in love with the phenomenal fall colors of the Trimburg hillside.

Initially, Heinrich Dietz rented an office there and soon employed the first staff. The initially ridiculed "Bäumlesplaner" quickly became an advisor to mayors and decision-makers in the rural areas of Lower Franconia. Here he conveyed that open space is more than just a green cover, that it points the way for local development. His design skills and professional competence as well as his enthusiasm for nature's concerns showed him the way to success. He did not lose himself in the narrow-minded pursuit of guidelines, but grasped the place, nature and open space as a large whole.

In 1968, together with a church architect friend, he realized an office and residential building in the hamlet of Engenthal at low cost in what was then a revolutionary glass-and-concrete construction method. He became involved in the market community, which awarded him its citizens' medal in 2008. Together with his wife Irmgard he managed the office until 1994. Irmgard Dietz headed the department of nature conservation and landscape planning, Heinrich Dietz the object planning in the open space planning. One of his later successes was the realization of the Small State Garden Show in Arnstein at the end of the 1990s. He developed the basic idea to include all local districts in order to be able to enforce the planning politically.

In 1994, Heinrich and Irmgard Dietz successively initiated the withdrawal from the operative business by taking on their son landscape architect Valtin Dietz and landscape architect Martin Beil as partners. Since 2020, Valtin Dietz has managed the office alone.

With the turn of the millennium, Heinrich Dietz enjoyed his retirement with numerous hobbies such as watercolor painting, photography, research on nature and native butterflies. The village community of Engenthal was always important to him. Heinrich Dietz passed away on Thursday, March 23. He is mourned not only by his children Valtin, Mechthild and Verena with families, but also by the profession.

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