Sunday 10 August 2014

Schwetzingen Palace and Gardens, Baden, Germany


The castle garden of Schwetzingen is a garden paradise of international standing. The garden has an amazing special structure. Today the unprepared visitor who passes through the middle castle gate will be taken aback by the sheer size of the parterres and the wide heaven above, and the views into the distance. One is transported away from every day life by the infinity of space, surrounded by light and colour. This is a magical moment, that lifts an ingenious garden creation, distinctive from other parks and green spaces. 
 



This impression is reinforced by the northern and southern side wings of the castle which give the garden a semicircular enclosure. In the West, this enclosure is mirrored by arcades (Berceaux de treillage), so that a circular frame is created.


A garden theatre in the largest scale, which plays with the elements: sky, water and earth represented by ornamental gravel and plant landscapes.
The garden reveals a wealth of other outstanding areas, buildings, water features and even a mosque with a Turkish garden that was built as an exotic garden ornament. At the northern side wing a rococo theatre was built of international standing. Ornate statues and fountains are spread over the whole garden.

 

Additionally and even more exciting, Elector Carl Theodor (1724-1799) installed a lovely garden within the garden, only for himself and his closest guests, with ingenious creations of a bath house, a birdbath, a Temple to Apollo and behind that an open-air theatre. All these rococo ideas combined in the smallest of spaces.


The still young baroque garden was finally supplemented (and fortunately not reshaped) with an English garden and arboretum in the 1770s by the young architect Ludwig von Sckell, the son of a gardener of the Castle Gardens of Schwetzingen. A brilliant creation which adds to the whole garden another historic superlative, namely to be one of the first English landscape gardens on German soil
 
 
  
 
 
 
Let’s start our tour at the castle. On each side of the four main paths to the central fountain are two rows of linden trees whose crowns are conical in shape. The baroque circle parterre has been restored step by step since the 1990s and the over-moldings of the lawn and mature trees removed. The garden preservation office has agreed to resurrect here an older design to fully show off the beauty of the garden and also preserve the interlikned baroque elements.  Linked with each other again they are brought back to blasting! Especially the new flowerbeds and gravelled ornaments that emphasise the old pools and fountains. They work well together with the vista of leading avenue trees that act as a prelude and introduction both for the Turkish garden, but rather more for the authentic rococo open-air theatre with the Apollo temple and bathhouse.




The trees are historically correctly shaped in a conical form which makes them look like immature specimens and are no longer box-shaped as in earlier baroque gardens. The whole design of the trees holds a form that creates a softer frame.


 
 

Passing the centre fountain to the right, you arrive at the entrance of the Rococo Theatre and next to it open the Linden gazebos which rise as tall as a house to impress by their monumentality and almost modern sculptural style. Next to it is a sunken rectangular garden parterre in front of the new Orangery. This Orangery garden is surrounded by a moat and arranged rather cautiously with potted plants and colourful summer annuals and perennial planting. However, this is necessary to create a buffer to the private garden paradise of Carl Theodor. Since the retreat of the Elector was accessible only by him and special guests there was a need to seclude this part of the garden from the main axis of the park and castle. The Orangery garden is reminiscent of a Flemish water garden with its circumferential water canal and white wooden bridges and is framed beautifully by the Orangery which is built with red sandstone.





A nondescript rear passage then leads to a natural open-air theatre which provides a breathtaking view of the Temple of Apollo, which dominates this tree clearing. It stands on a hidden foundation that includes a cave and is connected by a water feature with the slightly lower-lying natural theatre. Nearby is the formal sequence of cascades, an invigorating element in the otherwise aesthetically and spatially quiet and secure composition. The shapes of the floor plans and ornaments of the lawn, staircases and walls are elegantly decorated in 'style rocaille', the Rococo style, worked and adapted to the surrounding natural patterns in a manner that is reminiscent of modern, flowing, natural design.





A complex composition with rhythm and balance through hedges, steps, different levels, columns and figures, tension and relaxed motions in the lines, colours, light and shadows, sounds of the water and tranquility of the surrounding park.
 

With this cosmos of winding paths with beech hedges connected is the private residence of the Elector, the so called bath house. The name comes from a  large bathroom inside. The house was a private retreat and place of residence of the Elector, glam on the ground plan and with beautiful equipment inside, but much more beautiful from its outer shape. It looks like a large gazebo with side extensions. A private place, inviting and calming. Carl Theodor links his concept of a garden retreat inside and outside, which is actually a modern idea, and connects the house with the natural theatre and the bird bath outside and together these spaces (and garden rooms!) create an organic composition. The bird bath is a pergola-like creation outside in the rococo style, playful, gorgeous flowing lines with one purpose: to make a room for the enjoyment of life through a skilful blend of aviary, intimate shaded seating under a pergola, fountains with  an artificial theatrical perspective, which shows the end of the world, a magical place here and there.

 
 




 
Alongside is a walled gravelled courtyard in classic rectangular proportions (ideal for an outdoor celebration) and a beautifully gilded wrought-iron inlet port that completes the garden within the garden.


If you then enter the northern and southern Angloise and each subsequent northern and southern shrubbery (which are on the circle pit following, half round and then rectangular garden compartments with geometric paths, hedges and arcades), this calms the senses and relaxes you. However, this relaxation is short-lived, because there are very interesting garden features interspersed. A shepherd god Pan on the rock with slow running water is a meditative place, and grounds the mood. We continue our walk in contentplative mood.







 
 
Another bird bath with a snake-like water channel follows. A temple of Minerva, and other groups of figures vary the way and capture the visitor.



















At the other end, diagonally opposite to the bathhouse, there is a further highlight of German garden architecture. Surprisingly, you stand in front of a mosque with large attachments that resemble a cloister and a Turkish garden. The mosque is reflected in the informal landscaped lake behind it and leaves the mind wandering between the real 'world of illusion' of a mosque in Baden and the unreal world of mirrors. A highly amusing game. An exotic theme park as we enter the 18th century. In the mosque no religious ceremonies were performed, the mosque-like building was understood to reflect Lessing's sense of the spritual world  and not any special religious beliefs.
 
The garden around is designed with modern flowing curvaceous lines with shrubs and low trees and gives the impression of a modern country house garden.
 


The subsequent English Garden of Ludwig von Sckell and the ruinous Temple of Mercury near the large pond interlock with the surrounding countryside of fields and forests. A brilliant transition from the various designs of formal and informal traditions of the surrounding nature.
The park is always worth a visit for its special design of spaces in different traditions, of course the parterres of flowers as well as the forming frame hedges of beech, hornbeam and linden trees are most impressive in summer (my visit was on the 21st and 22nd of May 2014).

Monday 28 July 2014

Goldney House and Gardens, Bristol, UK

The University of Bristol owns an important cultural monument in Clifton: Goldney House and Gardens. The old manor house is now converted to student apartments, and there are neighboring modern apartment blocks for students too.


 

 

 


Our focus should not be the house, except to note that the modern student building fits very well with the gardens. This modern style appeals to me because it avoids the anitiquated style of the main house and keeps the property alive.
The garden is a surprise. Even if you live in Bristol, you don´t necessarily know the garden because it is hidden behind high walls. You enter the garden through a small doorway in the wall, which opens up into a kitchen garden and a tennis court and after that a meadow with fruit trees appears. This is just the first part of the garden, which is on an embankment, and was only ever the kitchen garden and orchard to supply the house. The University´s more recent installation of tennis courts disturbs the historic site and should, I think, be dismantled.


The kitchen garden directly abuts the house´s orangery, where a small path leads into the more important part of the garden. As you pass through a narrow opening in the hedge near the orangery, a spectacular garden expierence opens: The basic garden layout is as it was in the 18th century, as shown by contemporary paintings. What makes this look so adorable? There are a few, simple and well arranged characteristics: a clear layout, consisting of three straight lines, which meet the house with right angles (the old yew alley, new path, and the long rectangular pond). Another main line captures and combines the three elements at some distance from the house, making a balanced look.
 
 
 

These lines are arranged as follows:
From the main entrance of the house a yew avenue goes to a hidden cave, which probably shows the old path. In the 19th century the path was formed by a lawn.
In addition, a new path has developed in parallel, which starts at the orangery and goes to the observation tower, which now stands at the end of the line of sight.
The third line starts right in front of the orangery and is a formal water feature - a long, rectangular pond with a fountain. All of these lines meet the main house and the orangery with right angles and disappear towards the observation tower. Behind this starts the second main axes of the garden, which runs parallel to the house, on top of a wall ending as a bastion. Everything is simply and creatively interwoven so that
when one walks through it nothing appears angular or artificial.

The observation tower was designed as a pump house, containing a steam engine pump, for the spectacular water features in the underlying cave.
A staircase leads us down to a gothic-style vault. Inside is the wonderful version of a cave with an underground water course and devine figures. The creator of the garden, Thomas Goldney III designed this underground hall in 1739 with, what for the time, was a significant water feature, shell-decorated walls, a river God, and other statues that still enchant today.


 
The cave also has a stone lion guarding a lioness in a room behind. The whole athmosphere was made to entertain the 18th century visitors by ceating an unknown, exotic world.
 
 
 
 
 
Above ground, the garden continues along the wall to a pavillion in the gothic revival style. Below this it continues with a final round bastion building, previously allowing views of the River Avon and Bristol floating harbour. This is overgrown today with beautiful old trees.

The garden and grotto are publically accessible only six times a year, but it is well worth a visit in the summer when the garden is at its most beautiful (my visit was on the 29th of May 2014).