3. - Schlösser-Magazin

III. Report on the Excellence of Garden Conservation in Schwetzingen: Dr. Klaus von Krosigk
The most obvious evidence of this is what
is perhaps the earliest written work on the
Continent addressing the conservation of a
historic garden, the Protocollum commissionale,
Friedrich Ludwig Sckell‘s conservation plan
for the Schwetzingen gardens. This inspection
report, commissioned by the Court and Gardens
Commission and compiled in 1795, focused
on the continuing maintenance of the royal
palaces and gardens after the removal of the
court to Munich in 1778. Given the threat
posed to Schwetzingen by French revolutionary
troops, it was also considered necessary to
draw up an inventory detailing the state of
the precious gardens and the buildings within
them along with strategies for preserving and
maintaining them. It is tempting to call this
work an early management plan along the
lines of those required by UNESCO; and in
fact the protocollum commissionale contained
everything that was necessary and desirable in
order to ensure the long-term preservation of
the recently-completed work of art that is the
gardens.
The present Director of Gardens at
Schwetzingen, Hubert Wolfgang Wertz, is right
to point out the parallels between this and the
Gardens Management Plans drawn up much
later, in the 1960s, under the auspices of the
then Director of State-Owned Gardens Christian
Bauer (1903-1971). Like the protocollum
commissionale before them, these plans have
as their aim the development of long-term
management strategies for the sustainable
preservation of the gardens, preserving what
was recognised as worthy of preservation
with a critical awareness of, and respect for,
the artistic and historical significance of the
gardens, and with careful reference to historical
sources. It is remarkable that even in the
1820s, the heyday of the landscaped garden,
Sckell insisted that „the old symmetrical garden
design, where extant, is to be retained“ and
that he made reference to Schwetzingen‘s
„grand symmetrical gardens“. In fact, it is to
the great merit of Friedrich Ludwig Sckell that
he preserved the complex heritage inherent in
the Schwetzingen palace gardens, using a range
of specifically tailored techniques, continual
revitalisation and replanting, and in general
limiting his intervention to repairs in the best
sense of the word. He was also highly skilled
at channelling resources, so that even in times
of shortage of funds he was able to ensure
the long-term preservation of the structures
constituting the property, in the Baroque
gardens as well as the landscape areas.
Sckell‘s successors continued this tradition:
neither Johann Michael Zeyher (1770-1843) nor
the Karlsruhe-based management appointed by
the Grand Duchy ventured to make alterations
involving new gardens of contemporary design;
they endeavoured instead to preserve the
existing gardens, employing measures such as
the then rarely attempted rejuvenation of trees.
At the end of the nineteenth and beginning
of the twentieth-century, when the popularity
of the Neo-Baroque style sparked a renewal
of interest in Schwetzingen‘s long-disdained
Baroque garden heritage, Schwetzingen was
once more elevated to a position of importance;
in fact, appreciation of Schwetzingen‘s
uniqueness in the German-speaking world was
such that in 1910 Schwetzingen was referred to
in the literature as the „best-preserved gardens
of the late classical era“.
Schwetzingen‘s status remained unchallenged
in the years between the two world wars, in
spite of the extreme difficulties of the period.
This was not only due to the fact that, as the
renowned art historian Franz Hallbaum put it,
Schwetzingen „represents the perfect synthesis
of the two styles of garden“, but derived also
from the unique level of conservation of the
gardens.
As a result of this renewed appreciation of
Schwetzingen‘s heritage value, the Director
of Gardens for the city of Frankfurt am Main,
Carl Heicke, was charged with the compilation
of a report on the conservation of the gardens
before the outbreak of the Second World War.
This report, produced in 1937, came to the
conclusion that „the formal uniqueness and
beauty of the gardens“ was to be „preserved
for posterity by means of careful attention
to maintenance“, thus demonstrating a
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