Schwetzingen - Schlösser-Magazin

oad, where the new crossing had been shaped
into a circus. 38 Of the planned hunting park
southwest of the palace gardens, an eight-lane
“Jagdstern” (a star-shaped enclosure) housing
fallow deer had been built; it was connected to
the garden by an avenue (see Fig. 4). 39
The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
In the course of the 19th century, the town of
Schwetzingen expanded largely on the lines
laid out in Bibiena’s Baroque building plan.
Densely built-up areas developed along the
existing roads to the north, south, and east.
To the west of the garden, the areas of arable
land grew to include what had formerly been
woodland (see Fig. 9).
Until well into the second half of the 19th
century, Schwetzingen was connected to the
neighbourhood by two major roads. One road
led up from Mannheim and continued south;
the other was the former electoral avenue
connecting Schwetzingen to the “Bergstraße”.
When the first direct railway from Mannheim
to Karlsruhe via Schwetzingen was opened
in 1870, the town received its first railway
connection. The station building was erected
on the eastern outskirts, along with the
railway lines running at right angles to the
former Heidelberger Straße, the Baroque
east-west axis (see Fig. 8). The extension
of the railway network continued with the
construction of the Heidelberg-Speyer line. In
the Schwetzingen, Eppelheim and Plankstadt
areas, this was built in places to run exactly
where the old avenue leading to Heidelberg
had been, with the inevitable damages
resulting. 40 The older road to Heidelberg,
further to the north, became important
again. During the 1920s, the tramways
system was extended, with a line connecting
Schwetzingen and Heidelberg via Carl-
Theodor-Brücke and Nadlerstraße.
38 Cp. Martin 1933, p. 44. In the second half of the 19th century,
Christian Mayer S. J. used the axes as coordinates when conducting
the first exact survey of the Rhine valley (Fig. 5); the
cartographical result was the “Basis novae Chartae Palatinae”
(Fig. 7: Basis novae Chartae Palantinae. 1773.)
39 Cp. Wertz 2002, p. 25.
40 Cp. Joachim Stephan, “Infrastruktur und Zentralität. Die
Amtsstadt Schwetzingen und das Straßenbahnprojekt
Schwetzingen-Ketsch”, in: Badische Heimat, 1/2004, pp. 73-84.
IV. Palace Gardens: Role and Significance
Unlike the former electoral capital of
Mannheim, Schwetzingen escaped destruction
during WWII. Later extensions were built
on the existing road network. In 1974, two
large-scale projects were completed: a new
hospital was built south of the palace gardens,
and to the north, high-rise apartment blocks
went up; both structures were intended
to mark the respective ends of the town’s
great transverse axis. The built-up areas not
only of Schwetzingen itself, but also of the
neighbouring communities of Oftersheim
and Plankstadt, kept growing; today the three
towns have largely merged into one.
The importance of the railroad system
declined with the rise of individual transport
in the course of the 20th century. Both
the railroad and tram lines connecting
Schwetzingen and Heidelberg were
abandoned. Today, two motorways and a
high-speed train line run past the town area,
connecting Schwetzingen to the long-distance
network through a number of new connecting
roads.
IV.
Fig. 7: Christian Mayer,
‘Basis novae Chartae Palatinae’,
engraving by C. Verelst, 1773
(Karlsruhe, Generallandesarchiv).
The palace formed the
focal point of a Baroque system
of axes, created by the electoral
town and landscape planning
– in keeping with Absolutist
ideas, it was to dominate its
surroundings, the radiant
centre of the town.
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