3. - Schlösser-Magazin

eference to Greek antiquity. 13 The “authors
of (urban) utopias are quite obsessed with
the two absolute geometric shapes” 14 that
carry a whole host of meanings, among
them, at least in the dimensions realized
at Schwetzingen, that of governmental
power. 15 The circle is the ideal shape that in
the history of gardening traditionally carries
cosmological significance. 16 The original
purpose of the quarter-circle pavilions – to
serve as orangeries 17 – bridges the gap from
the pure Utopia represented by geometry
to an iconography of the Golden Age rooted
in the garden itself and so you can draw the
conclusion that it serves as a canon alluding
to the idea of the garden itself. The educated
visitor will be reminded of examples such
as the mythical island of Cythera from the
influential work of Francesco Colonna (1499)
or the programmatic layout of the botanical
garden of Padua with its cosmological
allusions going back to the Middle Ages. 18
Typological Comparison
So is the layout of the circular parterre, rooted
as it is in the European history of building
and ideas, outstanding and significant, or is
it merely another instance of the use of the
circle in the history of gardening?
13 Hanno Walter Kruft: Utopie und Idealstadt. In: Badisches
Landesmuseum: „Klar und lichtvoll wie ein Riegel“ – Planstädte
der Neuzeit. Karlsruhe 1990, pp. 31-37.
14 Bogdan Bogdanovic: Architektur der Erinnerung. Klagenfurt
1994, p. 43. There are two „ideal-typical“ examples in Baden-
Württemberg: Freudenstadt and Karlsruhe.
15 „From the very beginning the state represents itself through
emptiness: spacious rooms, huge avenues, vast squares designed
for monstrous parades” (Henri Lefèbvre: Die Revolution
der Städte. Frankfurt am Main 1990, p. 119).
16 The geometrical representation of the unfathomable (by the
Greeks) in a way constitutes the intellectual foundation of our
civilisation, which afterwards was loth for a long time to leave
that intellectual sphere – and is represented by the sphere,
symbol as well as Utopian shape of the world (Peter Sloterdijk:
Sphären II, Globen. Frankfurt am Main 1999, p. 50sqq); see
also: Geza Hajos: Die dritte Natur. In: the same, Denkmalschutz
und Öffentlichkeit. Zwischen, Kunst und Natur. Frankfurt am
Main 2005, pp. 233-259.
17 The most important plants of Baroque orangeries are the citrus
varieties. Their leaves are evergreen; moreover they bear leaves
and fruit simultaneously. Because of these botanical traits
they came to be regarded as symbols of the ruling dynasty’s
immortality; they were also associated with the golden apples
of the Hesperides from the Hercules myth. Raised to the status
of the virtuous hero’s attribute that was then transferred to the
prince, oranges were interpreted as symbolizing the return of
the Golden Age.
18 Geza Hajos: Die Weltbedeutung der kurfürstlichen Residenz
in Schwetzingen. Kunstgeschichtliche Stellungnahmen.
Schwetzingen 2009.
3. Justification for Inscription
To answer this question, and keeping in mind
the shifting intentions at Schwetzingen (from
the planned “star avenue” through a quartered
parterre enclosed within a circle to a circular
parterre) we will look at a number of selected
18th-century gardens with prominently
featured circles. As regards the use and
significance of the circle they can be roughly
subdivided into five categories.
(I) The ”Jagdstern“ (a hunting park with a
specific layout remniscent of a star shape):
From a central palace, or hunting lodge,
avenues radiate in all directions to give
access to the surrounding woodland. Like
the circle this layout is not “orientated”; the
multiple axes render it open in all directions
and without a defined border. The area
immediately adjacent to the palace gains
the character of a square; it is frequently
surrounded by a circle of pavilions and
generally not laid out as a parterre.
The palace of Favorite at Ludwigsburg (built
1717-24 by D.G. Frisoni) has the palace in
the centre of the hunting park where it
also constitutes the northern termination
of the prominently featured main axis of
Ludwigsburg Palace. An unrealised design
created by Pigage for the Belvedere of the
Stuttgart palace (1771) depicts the octagonal
pavilion in the centre of a star-shaped hunting
park on the hill facing the palace itself. 19
The circular shape only occurs in the
immediate vicinity of the palace, and its size
and featureless layout do not lend themselves
to comparison with the Schwetzingen
parterre.
19 Andrea Berger-Fix, Klaus Merten: Die Gärten der Herzöge von
Württemberg im 18. Jahrhundert. Katalog zur Ausstellung im
Württembergischen Landesmuseum Stuttgart. Worms 1981.
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