II. - Schloss Schwetzingen

III.
110
III. Schwetzingen – Historical Context
and were frequently used by the court. Plays
were performed on a regular basis in Pigage’s
threatre, opened in 1752, especially during
the summer. Soon the Elector asked his chief
architect to enlarge both the auditorium and
the anteroom, both already deemed too small.
Ten years after the theatre’s completion,
Pigage skillfully managed almost to double
the number of seats on the galleries. A new
staircase on the west side gave easy access to
the upper storeys.
At the same time, Pigage designed and built
an orangery in the northwest of the garden,
not far from the transverse north-south axis.
Its structure is clean and simple, the windows
face south; the central projection houses the
gardener’s apartment, and at the eastern end
a greenhouse was added that was remarkably
modern for its time. The orangery’s south side
is unique among the palace buildings, in that
it features an elaborate painted trompe-l’oeil
architecture.
Another building, begun in 1761, was an
extension at the back of the court of honour’s
southern wing, intended to house the kitchens.
It provides a direct connection between
the palace and the passage leading to the
southern quarter-circle pavilion. The building
runs parallel to the court of honour wing;
it housed the kitchens on the ground fl oor,
and servants’ quarters above (s. dendroplan).
When it was completed in 1764, the major
projects were largely accomplished. Only a
number of small extensions of the garden
wing and on the roof of the main building
were left to be completed. They were the
Electress’ “writing alcove” on the south side of
the fi rst fl oor 55 ; the Elector’s writing cabinet, a
half-timbered structure on the north side, the
so-called “Green Pavilion” 56 ; and the observatory
on the roof 57 . However, they had little
impact on the appearance of the palace as a
whole. The “Reichsdeputationshauptschluss”
of 1803, 58 gave the Palatinate east of the Rhine,
including Schwetzingen, to the Grand Duchy
of Baden. Maintenance work and the reapportion
of parts of the building, and individual
rooms, to serve different functions, were
the major changes. Even after 1919, when
the estate became the property of the Baden
family, little changed up to the present day.
The following plans (Building phase I-IV)
constitute a summary of the architectural
history of the Schwetzingen palace in four
stages. Building phase IV also included the
addition of the quarter-circle pavilions, the
theatre and the kitchen block to the palace
complex.
55 DP-Nr. 79, felled after 1760 (LSB-Nr. 131/03-2)
56 DP-Nr. 78, 1778.
57 DP-Nr. 66-67, 1762. The Jesuit Father Christian Mayer, electoral
court astronomer, made his epoch-making discoveries here.
The fi rst result was the “Small Map of the Palatinate”, one of
the most precise cartographic surveys of the 18th century; see
Martin 1933, pp. 74-5 and Sillib 1907, p. 16.
58 Carl Eduard Vehse, Die Höfe zu Baden, Leipzig/Weimar 1992,
pp. 98f.