Аb 1870, a cultural landscape emerged in the area around Wannsee that was unique in Berlin - perhaps even in all of Germany - during the Empire and the Weimar Republic. The glamorous world of Berlin's upper middle classes and the inhabitants of the magnificent villas of the Wannsee colonies, are only remembered by a few houses and gardens and some gravestones in the New Cemetery in Wannsee.
In the middle of the 19th century, the Berlin banker and owner of the "Berliner Handelsgesellschaft" Wilhelm Conrad (1822-1899) decided to settle at Wannsee. He acquired several parcels of land on the island of Wannsee, sold them to important Berlin personalities of the time (bankers, artists, industrialists, scientists and publishers) and founded the "Colonie Alsen", named after the island of Alsen, whose storming in 1864 decided the war of Prussia and Austria against Denmark. Among the new owners were Max Liebermann, Eduard von der Heydt, Oscar Begas, Hermine Feist, Johann Hamspohn, Johannes Otzen, Oscar Huldschinsky, the publishing family Langenscheidt, Fritz and Ferdinand Springer, Hugo Vogel and Anton von Werner.

The garden exhibition shows the history of the villas and their owners at that time.