Digital
Garden
History

From Book to Website

Digital
Garden
History

From book to website

The Hortus Dyckensis, published in 1834, documents the historical plant collection of Prince Joseph zu Salm-Reifferscheidt-Dyck with approximately 6,500 plant species. Commissioned by the Schloss Dyck Foundation, the collection was digitally made accessible and published on its own website. Historical and current plant names, botanical information, sources, and illustrations were brought together. R211 transferred the content into a networked website that connects book, database, and park, making plants, locations, and contexts searchable.

Digitally Accessing Complex Content

The challenge was to structure extensive historical data, texts, and image sources in a way that they would become digitally understandable and usable. R211 developed a clear information architecture for this purpose and linked the database, content, and illustrations into a searchable system. This resulted in a website that makes complex knowledge accessible, reveals connections, and opens up different paths through the collection.

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The website translates the complex collection into a clear user journey with three access points. The plant search enables targeted research by name, genus, growth forms, and cultivation conditions. Plant themes reveal connections from succulents and useful plants to medicinal plants and tree populations. Garden and History explores the historical order of the collection, its locations in the park, and the people behind it.

Historical plant illustrations, handwritten documents, and typographic fragments are transferred into a clear digital design framework. Themes such as the “living monographs” link plant families with their locations in the park and the corresponding database entries. Supplemented by a park map, search function, and thematic access points, a direct connection is created between historical material, botanical data, and the real location Schloss Dyck.

^{Image credits:
Fig. Book pages: Google Books
Fig. Abroma Augustum: https://hortus-dyckensis.de/literatur/#quelle6
Fig. Pineapple: https://hortus-dyckensis.de/literatur/#quelle13
Fig. Pyrus Malus: https://hortus-dyckensis.de/literatur/#quelle5}^{Fig. Medlar: https://hortus-dyckensis.de/literatur/#quelle5
Fig. Magnolia: Magnolia acuminata. Bot.Mag. T. 2427
Fig. Paeonia: Paeonia albiflora Humei Anders.-Bot. Mag. T. 1768
Fig. in film etc. : https://hortus-dyckensis.de/literatur
Fig. Canna: Canna indica (C. discolor) Edwards’s Bot. Reg. 15. 1231. 1829
Fig. Bulbine Aloides: https://hortus-dyckensis.de/literatur/#quelle1}^{Fig. Rosa semperflores: https://hortus-dyckensis.de/literatur/#quelle3}^{Fig. Butterfly: Album Constance de Salm, Louvre}

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