Palace in the Great Garden
The palace in the Great Garden , also known as the summer or garden palace , is a baroque pleasure palace in Dresden that was built from 1679 . It is located in the Großer Garten , an extensive green area on the edge of the city center.
The palace is considered to be the first significant secular building in Saxony to be built after the Thirty Years' War . It is also one of the earliest baroque buildings in the German-speaking area and is one of the most important buildings in Dresden in terms of art and culture. It is considered the "prelude" to the Dresden Baroque .
Location
The palace is located in the Great Garden, about two kilometers southeast of the inner old town . It stands in the center of the approximately two square kilometers large park, of which it is the dominant feature. It is located at the intersection of two right-angled lines of sight , the main avenue and the cross avenue. There are only a few, much smaller buildings within a radius of around 500 meters. To the southeast is the Palais pond with its fountain, the northwest side is lined with a flower garden.
building
Exterior
The palace is one of the important early German baroque buildings and is a founding building of the Dresden Baroque .
The execution seems a bit stricter than the Italian origins of the classical baroque, because features of the French palace construction of the 17th century have been incorporated. Typical design elements of the Classicist Baroque were structural forms that were taken directly from the Renaissance : triangular gables borrowed from temple architecture , colonnades , as well as columns and pilasters in a colossal order - these are often used twice. The frequent use of natural stone and the avoidance of colored plaster were also common. The palace follows this pattern; One of its distinctive style elements is the strong, contrasting facade structure with its lush, but strictly ordered decoration. The double column motif of the central risalite, the volutes protruding above it and the final segmented gable resemble the Louvre architecture. On the other hand, the forms of Genoese palaces also found their way into the mix of styles.
The three-story building has an H-shaped floor plan, as two protruding side wings adjoin the central wing on the northeast and southwest sides. The structure of the facade is emphasized both vertically and horizontally. The facades of the main fronts facing the city center and the pond are each 13-axis. In both cases, three of these relate to the two protruding side wing structures and the remaining seven to the central wing. Its three central axes are in turn emphasized on both sides by a central riser , each of which ends with a segmented gable . The side façades are divided into nine axes and are also accentuated by a central projectile each with columns that are stepped on each floor, but which has a triangular gable with a tympanum . The side wings form two courtyards on the city and country sides, which are open on one side. Double-flight and twice-turned outside stairs that lead to the first floor are integrated into this.
The facades are richly decorated with plastic jewelry, including festoons , friezes , vases , pilasters , capitals and reliefs . Busts of twelve Caesars and four empresses adorn the exterior of the building. Are located in various facade niches among other four-than-life sandstone - sculptures for Judgment of Paris , which, like the design of the portals to the trained in Italy George Heermann decline.
Interior
The ground floor of the middle wing is occupied by a vestibule , which consists of a hall with cross vaults supported by columns . Above is the large ballroom, which extends over two floors. In the two side wings there are three smaller halls on each floor.
The interior of the building was largely lost due to the bombing of Dresden in 1945. Today the rooms on the ground floor have been largely reconstructed, incorporating preserved parts. In contrast, the upper floor rooms show only small remains of the old furnishings that were preserved until 1945 and have so far only been reconstructed in sample areas. Originally the ballroom in particular was richly decorated with partly gilded stucco . The stucco marble work also carried out in the ballroom was the oldest in Saxony. Some of the stucco has already been manufactured by hand. The ornamentation of the side halls was created by French artists in a style previously unknown in Dresden. Four life-size allegories made of stucco were part of the decoration of the ballroom .
The wall and ceiling paintings were carried out by Samuel Bottschildt with his nephew, student and subsequent successor, Heinrich Christoph Fehling . The fresco showed the apotheosis of the building owner of the palace, Johann Georg III. The painting is considered to be the first highlight of Dresden monumental painting and served as a model for the pavilion ceiling paintings Fehling and Silvestre in the Dresden Zwinger .
history
Construction and use as a pleasure palace
The planning for a pleasure palace in the center of a square garden began in 1676 at the latest. From 1676 to 1678, under the direction of the court gardener Martin Göttlers, the land for the later Great Garden was acquired for the then Elector Johann Georg . The construction of the palace began in 1679 at the latest (inscribed date), on record under the construction management of the Oberland master builder Johann Georg Starcke . Today the palace is one of his main works and takes on numerous ideas from Italian villa construction, which are combined with French influences. Starcke's superior at that time was Wolf Caspar von Klengel as chief inspector of civil and military buildings, so that his involvement is likely. In particular, the ornamental motifs of the facades, such as leaf hangings and festoons , which are richly distributed over the surfaces, follow the formal language of the Italian Renaissance that Klengel brought to Saxony in the 1650s. Klengel also dealt extensively with the connection between architecture and sculpture, as is typical for construction. The large-scale sculpture of the facades and formerly inside was created by the Italian-trained George Heermann and the brothers Jeremias and Conrad Max Süßner , who certainly followed an overarching concept. The sculptors Marcus Conrad Dietze and Abraham Conrad Buchau were also involved.
At that time, the palace stood well in front of the gates of the Dresden fortifications and was not intended to be used for living, but only for entertainment purposes for the Princely House and its guests. When it was completed after five years of construction in 1683, at least the shell, its builder had been Elector of Saxony for three years after the death of his father . The interior work was not completed until 1690, shortly before the death of Johann Georg III. From 1683 the first redesign of the Great Garden took place according to plans by the gardener Johann Friedrich Karcher, who had just arrived in Dresden . In this context, the eight square cavalier houses were built between 1684 and 1694 , which were grouped around the palace and followed the model of Marly. Five of these one and a half- story , mansard-roofed pavilions, which contained play and refreshment rooms for the courtly society, have been preserved to this day.
After the death of Johann Georg IV , the palace passed to his younger brother August the Strong in 1694 . In the following three decades it was the scene of the lavish court festivals that were typical of the absolutist rulers. Its high point was the Venus Festival organized by August the Strong on the occasion of the wedding of his son , the then Elector Prince Friedrich August , with the Austrian Archduchess Maria Josepha on September 23, 1719. Especially for this occasion, Zacharias Longuelune built a temple of Venus near the Palais, which was named after 1725 Pillnitz was translocated. A French-style opera was performed in the garden theater, the idea and subject of which came from the king himself.
In the course of the 1720s, the importance of the palace for court festivals declined sharply. Court fashion had changed, which is why other castles and complexes such as the Zwinger and the Großsedlitz Baroque Garden were preferred from then on. Initially planned modifications to the palace were no longer carried out.
Use for collections and exhibitions
In the late 1720s there was finally a change in use. At the end of 1729 August the Strong had the extensive collection of antiquities set up on the ground floor of the palace. He had bought it a year earlier in Rome . Of the 194 ancient statues, 160 came from the collection of the Chigi family and 34 from the collection of Alessandro Albani . It was the first large collection of antiquities in Germany. The Antikensammlung formed the basis of the sculpture collection of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and remained in the Palais until 1747.
Subsequently, the electors' interest in the Great Garden declined. One reason for this was the destruction of the palace and the surrounding area during the Seven Years' War . After Dresden had come into the hands of Austria and the Imperial Army from 1759 in connection with the battle of Maxen , the Prussian Army under Frederick the Great tried to conquer the royal seat of Saxony in 1760 . The fighting led to devastation in the Dresden suburbs and the Great Garden. Oberlandbaumeister Julius Heinrich Schwarze began the reconstruction.
The Battle of Dresden , in which the Saxons and the French faced the Prussians and Russians in 1813, caused renewed war damage. Before they were eliminated, the Russian governor Repnin-Volkonsky had the Great Garden open to the public. This was a decisive impetus for the future of the palace. From 1828 it was used by a horticultural company as a depot and in the same year organized the "First public exhibition of rare fruits and plants". The first major exhibition of flowering plants followed in the spring of 1829. Further fruit and plant exhibitions followed and made the palace famous as a location for flower, plant and fruit exhibitions. In 1841 the Royal Saxon Antiquities Association moved into the ground floor and used it to display sacred sculptures. After the death of the court sculptor Ernst Rietschel , his extensive estate was designed as a museum and housed in the ballroom on the upper floor of the palace in 1861. The Rietschel Museum was transferred to the Dresden Sculpture Collection in 1889 and moved to the Albertinum . The Museum of the Antiquities Association, with its numerous objects originally belonging to the church, expanded into the upper floor in 1890 and remained the main user of the palace building for the following decades.
In 1887 the 1st International Horticultural Exhibition in Dresden takes place in the Great Garden. In 1896 the 2nd International Horticultural Exhibition in Dresden followed on the area of today's Transparent Factory and in the Great Garden. In 1907 the 3rd International Horticultural Exhibition in Dresden takes place, at which, in addition to the presentation of the plant material, large thematic overall images are created for the first time. Today's flower and floristry exhibition in the Dresden Spring in the Palais is based on the latter .
Destruction and rebuilding
The air raids on Dresden destroyed the palace shortly before the end of the Second World War in February 1945. The building burned down completely. As a result, the interior, for example stucco and furniture, as well as the non-outsourced holdings of the Museum of the Antiquities Association were almost completely lost. All roofs and ceilings were destroyed and large parts of the facades, especially in the area of the southern wing of the building, were badly damaged. Explosive bombs also had a very severe impact on the structure of the structure.
As early as 1946, security measures on the masonry to preserve the palace began and in 1954 the gradual reconstruction. In 1964 the roof was covered with an interim steel construction, so that in 1965 the remaining stucco could be secured. The exterior of the palace was largely restored by 1969, but was hardly used in the 1970s and 1980s. From 1968 to 1974 a narrow axis in the ballroom was restored on a trial basis. Between 1978 and 1984 there was a studio in the Palais for the reconstruction of the Semperoper , in which, among other things, the stage curtain of the opera house was painted. The roof was completed in 1993; the stucco ceiling on the ground floor was completed a year earlier.
On August 1 of the same year, the Dresden Castle and Gardens Company was founded (today part of the State Palaces, Castles and Gardens of Saxony ), with the management of the garden and palace being transferred from the City of Dresden to the Free State of Saxony. Under his direction, extensive renovations were carried out on the outside of the building in the 1990s. Since both old and new parts of the wall were used, the palace facade , like the Dresden Frauenkirche, is also a mosaic of light and dark stones.
While the reconstruction of the exterior of the palace has now been completed, the interior has only been partially renewed since 1990. From 1995 the first public events took place on the ground floor. In October 2000 the Förderverein Palais Großer Garten e. V. , which, together with the Dresden Community Foundation, advocates the reconstruction of the interior, especially the ballroom, and its use for cultural events. Under its member Günter Voigt , the Friends' Association also organized demonstrations for the reconstruction of the ballroom, in which a conference on the Great Garden took place for the first time in 2002. The palace was measured in 2002 and 2003. Up to 2005, room climate examinations as well as further safety measures on plaster and stucco were carried out. In 2005 the community foundation and support association organized the first community ball in the palace. In addition, exhibitions of modern art are shown and chamber music performed under the name Offenes Palais .
The flower and floristry exhibition Dresdner Frühling in the Palais has been attracting tens of thousands of visitors to the Palais since 2006. The organizer is the Fördergesellschaft Gartenbau Sachsen, based in Dresden. Since then, gardeners, florists, artists and light and sound designers have been creating a total work of art made up of colors, shapes and fragrances every two years. With around 40,000 flowers and plants, the show is the most important spring flower exhibition in Germany. With the exhibition, the Saxon Funding Society would like to continue the tradition of the great flower, plant and fruit shows in Dresden and present the craft of gardeners and florists.
literature
- Kathrin Reeckmann: The beginnings of baroque architecture in Saxony. Johann Georg Starcke and his time . Cologne: Böhlau 2000. ISBN 3-412-03200-X (here pp. 69–154).
- Saxon palace administration (ed.): The great garden of Dresden. Garden art in four centuries. Dresden 2001, ISBN 3-930382-51-2 .
- Harald Blanke: The Great Garden in Dresden. History and design in the age of August the Strong 1676–1733. 2 vol., Dresden, Techn. Univ., Diss., 2000.
Web links
- Website of the Förderverein Palais Großer Garten eV
- Palaces and Gardens of Dresden
- Building history
- history
- Dresden Spring in the Palais
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hagen Bächler and Monika Schlechte: Guide to the Baroque in Dresden , Dortmund 1991, p. 71.
- ^ Fritz Löffler, Der Zwinger in Dresden , 2nd edition, Leipzig 1976, p. 54.
- ^ Basically on the planning history: Reeckmann 2000. On the first garden project: Cornelia Jöchner: The 'beautiful order' and the courtyard. Geometric garden art in Dresden and other German residences . Weimar 2001.
- ^ Günter Passavant: Wolf Caspar von Klengel, Dresden 1630-1691. Travel - Sketches - Architectural Activities, Munich / Berlin 2001.
Coordinates: 51 ° 2 ′ 16 ″ N , 13 ° 45 ′ 46 ″ E