Malkastenpark

Johann Konrad Jacobi [de], a merchant and councilor of commerce, acquired a small estate there in 1742 which became a meeting place for artists and philosophers.

The new areas featured orchards with winding paths that crossed the Düssel several times, and a pond.

Since 1855, the Jacobi house and garden were owned by Friedrich Wilhelm Julius Brewer, the general director of the Düsseldorf gasworks.

The Düsseldorf notary Joseph Euler, a founding member of the Malkasten, and the district president Leo von Massenbach [de] supported the efforts by bringing about the "Corporationsrecht" (right of incorporation) for the Malkasten, which finally opened the legal way for the artists' association to acquire the property.

On 17 September 1857, the landscape painter Andreas Achenbach and the industrial lobbyist Alexander von Sybel [de] bought or pre-financed the Jacobi'schen Garten "with residential buildings, sheds, stables, barn, sheds, park with orangery house, meadow, vegetable garden and orchard, a total of 11 acres 117 Ruthen for 22,000 Thaler" with the intention of later transferring it to the Malkasten.

The gardens with the Düsselbach stream, the Venusteich pond (also known as the "Nixenteich") and historic and new buildings, provided space and a backdrop for imaginative artists' festivals that were famous beyond the borders of Düsseldorf.

[1] In the summer of 1997, the artists Jost Wischnewski [de], Gregor Russ, and curator Karl Heinz Rummeny founded the Parkhaus, a building in the area of the utility garden and former garden houses, serving as an experimental exhibition space intended primarily intended for young international artists.

On the nationwide Tag des offenen Denkmals in September, the park is usually open to the public for free.