3. - Schlösser-Magazin

y wooden columns. The trellises, too, are
elaborate in design and are adorned with
various decorative elements. At the corners of
the cloister stand octagonal pavilions capped
with oval tambours and domes. The interior
walls of the pavilions have mock supports in
the shape of palm trees, and the ceilings of
the domes feature a night sky with moon and
stars. The cloister ceilings, too, are decorated
with a pattern of stars.
Pavilions are integrated into the centre of
each long side of the cloister, at the point of
entry from the main building in the west,
and to mark access from the garden in the
east. They are decorated with aphorisms in
Arabic and German. Six more pavilions are
located beyond the cloister, connected to it at
right angles by covered passages. The most
remarkable attribute of the pavilions is the
“priests’ closets” they contain, small rooms
decorated so as to create the illusion of costly
stone materials, with stained-glass domes
set in the centre of the ceiling. Perhaps the
most eye-catching feature of the mosque is
the intricate roof, with its interplay of various
roof types all covered in slate, four gold-leaf
crowns on the domes of the corner pavilions,
and countless gold-leaf crescents dotted across
the whole structure. Seen from the east, the
roofscape gains in grandeur, set as it is against
a background of the central dome flanked by
minarets.
The cloister is embedded in an oriental-style
garden with meandering paths sloping gently
upwards as one leaves the mosque.
Landscape Gardens and Landscape Areas
Outside Gardens
The formal gardens have a geometrical layout
and are surrounded by a belt of landscape
gardens. To the west of the mosque is
a pond, and behind this a hill on which
the Temple of Mercury (Nicolas de Pigage,
1787-1792) is located. The south side of the
hill is fashioned in the form of a cliff, with a
narrow passage leading into a vaulted area
under the temple. The temple itself is an
artificial ruin in the form of a three-storey
2. Description
2.
View from the Roman water
tower into the ‘Wiesentälchen’.
Temple of Botany.
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