Since 1976 the Old Botanical Garden, as it is now known, has been used as a recreation area, as the location of the Völkerkundemuseum (ethnological museum) of the University of Zürich, as the site of an arboretum and of the so-called Gessner-Garten.

The arboretum is still remarkable, as is the idyllic location on the Schanzengraben moat in the midst of Zürich, and therefore the garden is a popular recreation area.

The signs by the plants give us an insight into the medicinal knowledge of Conrad Gessner and his contemporaries, such as Hieronymus Bock (1498–1554) and Leon Hart Fuchs (1501–1566).

The cavalier was particularly a strong increased gun emplacement, which towered over the adjacent defense walls and thus enabled additional covering fire.

Thanks to the altitude, a strong and large-scale defense was maintained by its powerful and therefore more far-reaching guns up to the present General-Guisan-Quai on lakeshore respectively the Sihlfeld area towards the Limmat Valley.

As of 1661 originated there also, incidentally, the only access for larger carriages into the town, the so-called Sihlporte which is the name of the area west of the botanical garden at the present Schanzengraben moat.

After discontinuation of defense purposes, from 1834 the upstream curtain walls were demolished, and in 1935 the hilltop bulwark was rebuilt to house the Gessner-Garten.