Schwetzingen - Schlösser-Magazin

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IV. Palace Gardens: Role and Significance
and artistic treasures, and that their value for
the present is inestimable. The Schwetzingen
garden with its magnificent avenues, its
grand layout and the blend of architectural
gardens and landscaped areas is described as
“a high point in the history of the German
garden, a garden” that wrote European
history. 38 Baroque and Rococo as well as
landscape gardens were subject to certain
formal principles, that had been neglected
at times. Consequently, the condition of the
garden in 1970 betrayed changes due to the
fact that its aging, and even its decay, had
been accepted as given. The danger had been
known for decades, and expert opinions had
been obtained, but the responsible authorities
had shied away from taking the requisite
drastic action. Now inventories suggested
that the degeneration of the avenues was
irreversible and that, although the bosquets
and landscaped areas still presented an
intact network of footpaths, the plants
were dangerously aged. The purpose of the
publication on hand was to document and
assess this state of affairs, and to point out
ways and means of regenerating the garden.
Further losses must be avoided; the garden
must be restored to its proper layout.
In 1972, the responsible authorities approved
the guidelines of the Parkpflegewerk. It was
recommended to tackle the urgent task of
regenerating the Schwetzingen garden, as a
cultural monument of European status, in
keeping with its original design principles
while respecting and enhancing its function
as a recreational area. The work was to be
carried out over a period of time. It was
agreed that this regeneration, along with
additional work on waterways, buildings,
footpaths and sculptures, would result in a
general improvement of the condition of the
whole estate. The requisite measures taken
in the course of the past thirty years, such as
the reconstruction of the central parterre 39
or the replacing of the withered lime trees
38 Bauer/Schwenecke 1970, S.1.
39 Hubert Wolfgang Wertz, “Wiederherstellung und Unterhaltung
von Parterreanlagen, dargestellt am Beispiel des Schwetzinger
Parterres”, in: Gartendenkmalpflege, Stuttgart 1985, pp.174-204.
in the circular parterre, 40 are documented in
detail in the later parts of the Parkpflegewerk
dating from 2005. They are a fine example
of well-informed work adhering to the
principles of historic garden conservation. A
concept for the preservation and restoration
spanning the next decade is attached to this
“diary” of the Schwetzingen palace garden. 41
It upholds the legacy, all the more remarkable
for its unbroken continuity, of preserving the
historic gardens of Schwetzingen, a tradition
which has its roots in the “Protocollum
commissionale” of 1795.
(Hubert Wolfgang Wertz)
40 Hubert Wolfgang Wertz, “Maßnahmen im ‘Zirkel’ des
Schwetzinger Schlossgartens”, in: Die Gartenkunst des Barock,
conference of the German ICOMOS committee and the State
Office for Monument Preservation (Bayerisches Landesamt
für Denkmalpflege), on Schloss Seehof near Bamberg 23.-26.
September 1997. Ed. Florian Fiedler. Journals of the Deutsches
Nationalkomitees/International Council on Monuments and
Sites, No. 28, 1999, pp. 131-135.
41 Uta Schmitt, Hubert Wolfgang Wertz, Fortschreibung des Parkpflegewerks
für den Schwetzinger Schlossgarten, unpublished,
Bruchsal 2005.