Schwetzingen - Schlösser-Magazin

IV.
Fig. 6: Ground plan of the new
market square, with residents’
names, c.1775 (Karlsruhe,
Generallandesarchiv). By the
middle of the 18th century,
the alterations were clearly
showing in the layout of the
town. The new square and main
street were lined with a closed
front of handsome townhouses.
94
IV. Palace Gardens: Role and Significance
lead to a stretch of carefully tamed woodland
(see Fig. 4) 29 .
The new layout of both the town and the park
necessitated expropriations, and the existing
plot structure was severely disturbed (see Fig. 3).
After Elector Carl Theodor had inherited the
domains of the Bavarian house of Wittelsbach,
the residence was moved from Mannheim
to Munich in 1777. Once the court had left,
building at Schwetzingen declined. When the
Palatinate was dissolved in 1803, the character
of the Schwetzingen townscape, and the
town’s relationship to its surroundings, were
still characterized by the alterations made in
Carl Theodor’s time, and by Bibiena’s plans
based on the principles of Absolutist town
planning (see Fig. 5). 30
The important existing roads to Oftersheim
and Mannheim had been improved and
made up; the road to Mannheim had been
29 Cp. Martin 1933, p. 163, Fig. 126.
30 Cp. Schweinfurth 2001, pp. 236 ff., Fig. 3a
straightened in parts. 31 By the 1760s, parts
of the planned building along the central
axis and the marketplace were completed 32 ,
(see Fig. 6) among them the stables 33 and
the southern front of the square. It is
reasonable to assume that the resident court
had served to further and inspire local trade
and craftsmanship 34 and left its permanent
mark on a settlement, that had been rural in
character before. The demand for lodgings
caused by a growing population, had resulted
both in more densely built-up areas, and in a
larger town. 35
The layout of the palace remained basically
that of the early 18th century. Functional
deficits had been compensated for by the
addition of extensions and small additional
structures, while some existing outhouses
had been demolished. 36 The Leimbach still
marked the town’s eastern boundary, but its
course had been adapted to the new extension
housing the kitchens 37 and other newly
erected outbuildings.
The plain garden of the early 18th century
had been completely restructured by the
designs of Petri, de Pigage and Sckell; it was
now characterized by the geometrical French
style, as well as that of the English landscape
garden, and had been extended towards the
west by 900m into what had been arable
land. The great east-west axis constituted
the park’s central path, continuing into the
surrounding countryside as a lane cut into
the woodland. According to historic maps, the
plan to reshape the eastern part of the axis as
a mulberry avenue was still being considered
(see Fig. 5 and 7).
The transverse axis took the shape of an
avenue of trees running to the southern
boundary of the park; northwards it continued
beyond the park until it met the Mannheim
31 Cp. Martin 1933, pp. 44 ff.
32 See also Martin 1933, p. 43, Fig. 32.
33 Martin 1933, p. 427.
34 Schwetzingen had been granted market rights in 1759.
35 Cp. Schweinfurth 2001, pp. 236 ff.
36 Cp. Martin 1933, pp. 89, 95, 423. During the 1750s the old
orangery was pulled down; the dilapidated stables were
demolished in the 1760s, and the former pheasant-house in the
1770s.
37 Cp. Martin 1933, p. 71 ff.