Zprávy památkové péče 2019, 79(1):41-49 | DOI: 10.56112/zpp.2019.1.06

Results of the surveys of certain structures of the Chateau Garden in Kroměříž

Dalibor Janiš¹, Jan Štětina²

¹ Filozofická fakulta Ostravské univerzity

² NPÚ, ÚOP v Kroměříži

The Chateau Garden in Kroměříž, which since 1998 has been registered on the World Cultural and Natural Heritage List together with the Chateau and the Flower Garden, developed from the end of the 17th century until the early 20th century. The garden was gradually equipped with a wide range of structures whose history and construction have been explored in recent years. The absence of any historical/constructional knowledge of the garden structures was particularly noticeable because the development of the garden itself could be studied in detail through numerous map materials. Research has shown that the key period during which most of the garden structures were built was the transformation and expansion of the Chateau Garden during the period of Archbishop Antonín Theodor Colloredo-Waldsee (1777-1811). The buildings built around 1800 based on the designs of an unspecified architect underwent a Classicist reconstruction in the second half of the 1830s based on the designs of Anton Arche; over the following three decades, they obtained contemporary, historicizing forms.
The oldest of the researched structures is the small house of the first horticultural assistant from the second half of the 17th century. The Baroque house underwent a late Baroque reconstruction perhaps after 1752, when a connecting tract was inserted into the interior. Already at the beginning of the 18th century, the enclosure wall of the garden was built; its southeastern section has been preserved, including the former entrance gate. A dendrochronological analysis indicated the creation of the gate in the first or second decades of the 18th century, which corresponds to the plastering design of its facade. Probably in the first half of the 18th century, the gardener's house was also built, with an extra story added around 1800 and again in the late 1930s. Around 1800 the house, with its facades featuring illusive brickwork, was surrounded by a separate Dutch garden. The artificial ruins, built before the end of the 18th century, were built in a remarkable combination of Gothic and antique architecture. Further development, however, was aimed at simplifying the original building, which was eventually transformed into a pheasantry. Also, the three-winged Peacock Court structure, built in the last years of the 18th century, underwent several modifications in the 19th century. It was designed by Anton Arche in the late 1830s, resulting in a sober Classicist building. Around the year 1865, the illusive half-timbering application of the building gave it the character of a Swiss farmhouse. The Temple of Friendship, built on a separate island that emerged from the pond surface around 1800, retained the appearance of an open dome temple, referring to e.g. similar structures in Ermenonville or Versailles in France, despite its change of roofing in ca. 1865. Even the Fisherman's House, built at the Long Pond before 1800, underwent a number of changes in the 19th century, the most important of which was Arche's Classicist reconstruction from 1839. In the mid-1860s, the pavilion acquired its present-day arcade style. Perhaps the architecturally highest quality building is the Maximillian Colonnade, built in 1845-1846. The semi-circular airy structure, designed by Anton Arche as an open column gallery, has retained its basic concept even after the openings in the rear wall were bricked up. An interesting technical structure is the single-arch bridge at the "American House", built from a combination of brick and stone masonry. The Chinese Pavilion, built sometime in the 1880s on an island in the Wild Pond, illustrates the popularity of oriental motifs in late 19th-century garden architecture. These, along with Moorish elements, also appeared in the details of other structures in the garden - the Fisherman's Pavilion, the Peacock Court, and the guard houses.

Keywords: Chateau Garden, Kroměříž, building-historical surveys, garden architecture

Published: March 1, 2019  Show citation