3. - Schlösser-Magazin

2. The
16
Cour d’honneur of the palace.
View from the palace roof west
towards the parterre.
2. Description
main wing originates in the fourteenthcenturies;
repeatedly altered since then and
extended to the west, its current form dates
from 1716. It displays a clear contrast to the
two side wings, with rusticated stonework
extending up to the first floor in the centre
and to the eaves on the two symmetrical
towers, which are adorned with cambered
turrets. The building is set back in the centre,
creating a courtyard enclosed on three sides.
Here we find the east facade of the main
wing, positioned at a slight angle to the other
facades in the cour d’honneur. The ground
floor houses the palace administration and
the Building and Maintenance Department
(Schwetzingen branch) of the State Agency for
Property Assets and Construction. The upper
floors are accessed via two straight flights of
stairs. They form the palace museum and are
furnished in the style of the latter half of the
eighteenth-centuries. The main wing retains
stucco ceilings from the reign of Carl Philipp
(1716-1742) and furnishings from the reign of
Carl Theodor (1742-1799). The second floor
has retained rare panorama wallpaper in situ,
put up by the Zuber company from Rixheim
at the beginning of the nineteenth-centuries
(1804).
The main wing’s east-facing facade has an
archway in the centre, through which one
enters the gardens.
Circular Parterre
Since the palace gardens are not visible
from the cour d’honneur, the archway
to the gardens resembles a threshold to
another world: after the enclosed space of
the courtyard, the gardens fan out in a wide
open space beyond the slightly raised terrace.
Immediately visible are the gravel paths,
lawns, flower beds, ornamental box hedges
and geometrically clipped lime trees of the
great circular parterre. At the centre is a
fountain with jets attaining almost 14m in
height. The parterre has a diameter of approx.
322m and is framed by two quarter-circle
pavilions, by arcades of clipped lime, and by
quarter-circle trellised walks (“bercaux en
treillage”) facing the pavilions.
The quarter-circle pavilions (north pavilion
built 1748-50, designed by Alessandro da
Bibiena; south pavilion built 1752-54, designed
by Franz Wilhelm Rabaliatti) are one-storey
constructions with large, arched French doors
along their whole length and each have five
projecting sections. These sections have
hipped mansard roofs, contrasting with the
plain gabled roofs of the sections joining
them. While the south pavilion’s two halls
(the Hunt Hall and the Mozart Hall) boast
richly ornamented stucco ceilings, those in the
north pavilion are plain in style. The north
pavilion leads to the palace theatre (Nicolas de
Pigage, 1752-1753), which has no facade of its
own. The auditorium is made of wood and is
shaped in the form of a horseshoe, with two