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palaces in and around Kassel - I

Wilhelmsthal in Kassel - Calden

by little we make here in the blog "our palace", ie, before our very frequently visited and beloved plants from the region in and around Kassel .
These are purely personal descriptions and interpretations these places and not scientific treatises.

We use the spacious parking facilities for our walks and our meetings. [Calden hist -

Wilhelmsthal in Kassel:

the first place Cassel - Kalden]

plan of the entire system from the mid-18th Century
have this copy of the historical plan, I colored for better clarity

Architectural History:

The famous Munich court architect François de Cuvilliés planned and built this castle as a new Landgrave's summer residence in the years 1743-1761.
Simon Louis du Ry, who took over from the 1756 site management of Kassel and the surrounding area, completed the installation.

Today with Wilhelmsthal usually the name of Landgraf Wilhelm connected VIII (1682-1760), the however long only "managers", ie, governor of Hesse-Kassel, and not the official Landgraf was because his brother Frederick I (1676 - 1751) has held this position.
Friedrich became the king of Sweden in 1715 by marriage to the famous Ulrike Eleonore, which remained as owner of Drottningholm in memory.
after the first death of Frederick, Landgrave Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel was.

Wilhelm VIII was an art-loving and fun-loving prince. He laid the foundation stone for the stunning collection of paintings, which are, despite French looting during the Napoleonic wars, can admire today. It contains works by Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens, Rigaud, Largilliere, Reni and many other great masters.

In Calden (then written with 'K',) the new summer residence was built, in the modern French style - his "paradise" as the Landgraf, the project called them, as the palaces in Kassel were not very attractive:
Charles Berg, a ruined building and the palace Orangery, also unfinished goes, hardly to Reside. The large Baroque park in the Karlsaue was increasingly out of fashion, and at the City Palace, one of several times - most recently by Remy de la Fosse - reconstructed Renaissance building, there was little contemporary Representative and many had only planned. In addition, it was
long been customary to flee the cities and build palaces generous outside, just as it had shown us more than Louis XIV, half a century previously.


The castle is today, is virtually unchanged by its come down to our state, its sumptuous interior and the tasteful design of its entire system, a prime example of German Rococo, and is actually one of the great secret Germany's historical treasures.
Wilhelmsthal offers a fascinating mixture of Bavarian and French (Cuvilliés) and Prussian Rococo (Nahl), who commit themselves to La Cour de Cassel to experience and enjoy permitted.

[View from the main entrance of the roundabout to Castle]

[View of the courtyard]

[look at the south wing with the historic kitchen]

[The unusual Main entrance of the castle]

The most remarkable interior decoration is from the Berlin court sculptor Johann August Nahl Friedrich.

Unfortunately we can not show any pictures of the interior, as the Castle Administration does not prohibit the act of photographing, but requires astronomical amounts of money for it. Therefore, we have not provided it.


One may expect Wilhelmsthal no pomp in Augustusburg at Brühl or the Wies Church.
The equipment is more private, less repräsentiernd, but superior to be detailed.
The rooms are relatively small, so they have a very unique, private character.
The decorations are richly gilded, but without being intrusive or over-charged.

The paintings in the castle, in particular those of "beauties gallery, come mainly from the Kassel court painter Johann Heinrich Tischbein Elder
This had gone with van Loo and Nattier in Paris in the teaching, and perhaps the great portraits of Louis XV and Marie Leszczynska, which now hang in Wilhelmshöhe, the masterpieces of the painter?
Wilhelm VIII is said to have declared before the paintings legs:

"I would not have believed that a German can paint like"

are total of 4 wonderful apartment in the Castle Wilhelm Thal, which also have always surprisingly intimate room. Of a "Belle Etage" you can almost no longer speak, as the inferior rooms on the ground floor of the beauty and splendor of the first floor in nothing. A simple but elegant
staircase leads from the central vestibule, from the central central building in the first floor and the ballroom, with its magnificent facilities could be considered as a prime example of the rococo style in general.
Of particular extravagance and beauty is a small cabinet with carved wall panels: bird cages with filigree bars from which stretch parrots their heads in the room.
What is surprising is the way that even the servants quarters and servants' corridors are decorated with stucco.

very impressive is the original 'kitchen in the south wing, which has even higher than the original work surfaces and a huge' Grill-machine 'is home to the the Landgrave killed by hunting automatically over the fire turned and roasted ...
located in the northern wing is a counterpart to this chapel, which dates from a later period ...


The facade of Wilhelmsthal is hold back, and looks more like a country house than a palace.
awareness was here before especially the garden, an intimidating, or too strong representative facades avoided. characterized
While the page to the farm much more from the conventional three-winged building, the garden looks almost avant-garde, renounces orders of columns, two discreet steps lead from the garden room in the garden.

[look at the south wing from the garden]

THE PARK

The park was similar to the Karlsaue in Kassel conceived as a "fan system with three dominant principal axes . He is facing east. Some
conceived by Cuvilliés, he was, as the castle itself, completed to 1761 mostly.

around the castle smaller Broderie the ground floor have been planted. Dominant, however, as can be seen on the plan, a large curved pool behind the palace, which opened in the central axis. Today, it appears merely as a natural-looking pond.
The distinctive feature of the system is that the castle is located at the lowest point of the site.
This opened up the opportunity here as a cascade at the Kassel Wilhelmshöhe implement - but far less monumental.

Large vases lined the pool and the cascade system. The
dominant axis was continued until a large oval basin, surrounded by several small bosquets.

[From the monumental vases only one received is] [remarkable historic graffiti on the weather side away derVase,
along with a bullet hole (?)]

After the death of William VIII presented Landgraf Friedrich II of Hesse Kassel (1720-1785) to complete the installation. After his death, however, Castle and park fell into disrepair.
Landgrave William IX (1743-1821) left the park - unfortunately, in a English landscape park redesign.
is very imposing, built from the stones of the removed cascade new tower in the center of the park.

[look at the tower]

is the most beautiful part of the garden, the grotto area.
This beautiful facility is located on the right main axis of the garden.
After a few more intricate bosquets they reached a long channel with countless individuals, small fountains, bubbling in subtle bends in the channel.
is the end of the channel, the Grotto, also a work by François Cuvilliés, another source mentions, however, Wenceslaus of Knobelsdorff Creator the system.
The building is a freestanding pavilion, which is expressed by contemporaries as described magnificently:

"The floor of the grotto are of marble and walls covered with moss, all sorts of rugged layers and blown-out cliff rocks, between which the snails and clams of all kinds Art impressive, with ingleichen Blauner and other mining and ore stones and coral tines added.
Different from ore, marble and shell factory manufactured dragon Salamnder and other poisonous animals and insects are around the top "
(Christian Schimke, 1767)

In addition, the cave of course of water games.

The system is dominated by the allegory of the 4 seasons at the end of the channel and of the 4 elements of the cave. There are also a variety of putting, and at the entrances to the cave figures of Apollo and Diana, a symbol of day and night.
One possible interpretation of this system could be that this is an allegory of life or the love of life. The figures symbolize life itself.
The pool in front of the cave with the channel has a phallic shape, a small amphibian, symbol for poison, in the middle of the channel, an inclined fountain sprays - perhaps a humorous reference to sexually transmitted diseases.
This reading is natural, because the lock as a summer residence and was not planned as a seat of government. It was designed entirely on gallant adventure and pleasure.

Supposedly even the Elector Clemens August have come personally to Calden to the work of its artists at the grotto to take.
this I found no evidence.

[look across the Channel to the cave]

[putto at the cave system]

[The Grotto]

[figure Diana [at the entrance of the cave]

A look inside]

[view through the central window of the cave on the channel]

[View from the "gallery" of the cave on the channel]

The schedule of the former system follow after the grotto on the same axis two pools, one framed by bosquets, the conclusion of the axis was the "duck pond".
held in this area of the country count his ducks, because he collected these animals with great passion. The
Duck pond was later framed by two bosquets that have elaborate water features and - had Chinese houses - according to the fashion of the time.
summer houses in the Chinese style.

The rest of the park offered many intimate garden rooms, small rear cabinets, small playful Bosquets ...

As part of the restructuring measures of the Landgrave William IX (later Elector William I) water games Bosquets and Chinese houses were torn down entirely, the pools almost all been filled or drained.
The channel in front of the cave has also been filled in and transformed the grotto in the style of the early Romatik.

[The area behind the grotto, a former pool]

[can the duck pond or the late-Baroque basin guess]

[look at The area where even the Chinese houses and the elaborate Bosquets were]

[Park View]

[The former Great Basin at the end the main axis]

The castle and the park today

The castle is largely in good condition, the facade, however, is strong need of renovation.
The garden is extremely degraded, the plantations have in common or something with a rococo garden, yet with an English landscape garden, it will in a general status that is found in every city park. Unfortunately, this is unfortunate in the whole of Germany in almost all parks and landscaped gardens.
In the 60 years the grotto Cuvilliés restored and reconstructed the channel with the fountain, the grotto was given new windows (but with 50's attacks -! With kidney-shaped design)

You may also give no illusions, the cave as it appears today is not the way they looked Landgraf Wilhelm VIII, but with its rough natural stone facade and unadorned inside, more of a design measure, from the late 18th Century.
From the above-described beauty is to see anything.
The figures around the grotto are in a terrible state, it did not come help them restore and so is missing almost half of the figures at present.
Individual pieces have been restored, but it refrained to use real gold leaf, and chose rather a thick gold paint. Unfortunately, some of which
was also done inside the lock case and is now the Restoration with the task of these craft, and "restoration" suspensions fix again.
Since the color to the figures of stupid visitors scraped again and again because yes but what gold was worth, provides a pitiful sight of many figures.

The plant, ie the flowing waters of the channel, has long been ailing since 2010 and completely out of order.
Man at least had water in the canal to the reflection of the cave or the park to get. Unfortunately the pool is maintained
unlikely, so that a green slime has taken over much of the water.

are very nice and tasteful, however, the flowers, the planting The area around the lake in the immediate vicinity of the castle form. Featured
and some unusual plants can be a bit of the spirit of an English country park to life.

The overall impression of the park is on closer inspection, and in relation to the past but rather sad, but in its decay and very romantic.

While at Versailles and elsewhere damaged sites naturally reconstructed, is unfortunately not enough time provided for the maintenance of the status quo. Many bad planning have been done mainly during the last 30 years.
An absolute ruthlessness is the main road which passes next to the park and the overall impression or sustainable acoustically turbid.
not imagine what cause an expansion of the airport in Calden would.
Already, the sport pilot interfere with their machines, the gentle calm of the park. If the airport
Calden should be developed into an industrial airport, it means that the certain death of the plant - who already finds peace and relaxation in a flight path?


However, despite this wild and high-risk status of the city still carries out the same flair that he had in the 18 century must have been, and still it is possible there, the absolute peace of mind to find.

[look on the main axis, the former Great Basin to the castle there]

[look at the castle from the main axis]

is sad especially that the Kassel plant a unique art-historical value, and this is hardly aware of and known.
For where you have 3 different systems, the almost completely planned in style respective (and reconstructed) are:

I. Orangerie / Karlsaue - a Baroque park, such as from the pattern book, probably goes to plan, even back to André Le Nôtre [ Georg Dehio, Handbuch der Deutschen Kunst 1905 Monuments ] And would thus already of great value: for it would be the only one of the great garden architect on German soil!

II Wilhelm Thal - a rococo device which is of great beauty and rarity.

III. Wilhelmshöhe / Karl Berg - originally a baroque system, but through the radical transformation of the palace and park by William IX, one of the finest examples of an English landscape park

All three major principles of gardens of the 18th. Century would be gathered together in separate facilities.



It is time that the value of these places Cassel finally recognizes and ensures, in particular Wilhelm Thal.
The lock must adequately maintain and at least the unique rococo garden will be reconstructed. This is possible since even the plans for the Chinese houses are preserved.

Currently there are efforts of the city for these monuments to the Unesco World Heritage propose. - But in this state is rather problematic.

we compare the facilities in Kassel with the plants as Schwetzingen, Drottningholm, Versailles, etc. and see what is there to be made for activities in terms of maintenance and reconstruction, then you probably understand that this project in Kassel will be taken only in attack may, if the means for an extensive renovation and a fundamentally new approach in dealing with these systems are considered. The decision of the
Unseco is pending - it will be interesting.
might succeed a recording and led to a rethink.
It would do about the facilities very much.

[views of the garden facade with the lake]

Sources:
travel time / time travel - to the most beautiful palaces, castles, gardens, abbeys and Roman architecture in Germany [ Quick - Steiner Verlag]

garden art in Europe [Koenemann Publisher]

garden art in Europe [Taschen]

German castles - German princes [Bertelsmann Verlag]

style client - Wilfried Koch [Bertelsmann Verlag]

Old Masters Gallery [Hessian fire insurance]
- Flemish
- Italian champions
still life old master

architecture Baroque [Koenemann Verlag]

architectural classicism [Koenemann Verlag]

Georg Dehio - Commission of the German art monuments - Volume I, central Germany in 1905

Where undisturbed the ruling Lenz - William Castle near Calden [Fabian Fröhlich]