Het Loo Palace ( nl, Paleis Het Loo , meaning "The
Lea
Lea or LEA may refer to:
Places Australia
* Lea River, Tasmania, Australia
* Lake Lea, Tasmania, from which the Lea River flows
* RAAF Base Learmonth, IATA airport code "LEA"
England
* Lea, Cheshire, a civil parish
* Lea, Derbyshire, a set ...
") is a
palace
A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...
in
Apeldoorn
Apeldoorn (; Dutch Low Saxon: ) is a municipality and city in the province of Gelderland in the centre of the Netherlands. It is located about 60 km east of Utrecht, 60 km west of Enschede, 25 km north of Arnhem and 35 km south of Zwolle. The ...
,
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, built by the
House of Orange-Nassau
The House of Orange-Nassau (Dutch: ''Huis van Oranje-Nassau'', ) is the current reigning house of the Netherlands. A branch of the European House of Nassau, the house has played a central role in the politics and government of the Netherlands ...
.
History
The
symmetrical
Symmetry (from grc, συμμετρία "agreement in dimensions, due proportion, arrangement") in everyday language refers to a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance. In mathematics, "symmetry" has a more precise definiti ...
Dutch Baroque
Dutch Baroque architecture is a variety of Baroque architecture that flourished in the Dutch Republic and its colonies during the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century. (Dutch painting during the period is covered by Dutch Golden Age painting).
L ...
building was designed by
Jacob Roman and
Johan van Swieten Johan
* Johan (given name)
* ''Johan'' (film), a 1921 Swedish film directed by Mauritz Stiller
* Johan (band), a Dutch pop-group
** ''Johan'' (album), a 1996 album by the group
* Johan Peninsula, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada
* Jo-Han, a manu ...
and was built between 1684 and 1686 for
stadtholder
In the Low Countries, ''stadtholder'' ( nl, stadhouder ) was an office of steward, designated a medieval official and then a national leader. The ''stadtholder'' was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and H ...
-
king
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
William III William III or William the Third may refer to:
Kings
* William III of Sicily (c. 1186–c. 1198)
* William III of England and Ireland or William III of Orange or William II of Scotland (1650–1702)
* William III of the Netherlands and Luxembourg ...
and
his consort Princess Mary. The garden was designed by
Claude Desgotz
Claude Desgots (or Desgotz; c. 1658 – 1732) was a French architect and landscape architect, who designed French formal gardens in France and England. He worked with and was strongly influenced by André Le Nôtre, the designer of the gardens a ...
.
After the elder
House of Orange-Nassau
The House of Orange-Nassau (Dutch: ''Huis van Oranje-Nassau'', ) is the current reigning house of the Netherlands. A branch of the European House of Nassau, the house has played a central role in the politics and government of the Netherlands ...
had become extinct with the death of William III of England in 1702, he left all his estates in the Netherlands to his cousin
Johan Willem Friso of the
House of Nassau-Dietz in his Last Will. However, the King of Prussia claimed them, as he also descended from the Princes of Orange, and the Houses of Orange-Nassau and Hohenzollern had, a few generations before, made an inheritance contract. Therefore, most of the older properties, though not including Het Loo, were in fact taken over by the Hohenzollerns, who never lived there. Johan Willem Friso's son,
William IV, Prince of Orange
William IV (Willem Karel Hendrik Friso; 1 September 1711 – 22 October 1751) was Prince of Orange from birth and the first hereditary stadtholder of all the United Provinces of the Netherlands from 1747 until his death in 1751. During his whole l ...
, finally took over Het Loo Palace,
Soestdijk Palace
Soestdijk Palace ( nl, Paleis Soestdijk ) is a palace formerly belonging to the House of Orange-Nassau, Dutch Royal Family. It consists of a central block and two wings.
Although named after the village of Soestdijk, which is largely in the munic ...
, as well as
Huis ten Bosch Palace
Huis ten Bosch ( nl, Paleis Huis ten Bosch, ; English: "House in the Woods") is a royal palace in The Hague, Netherlands. It is one of three official residences of the Dutch monarch; the two others being the Noordeinde Palace in The Hague and ...
near The Hague. His widow later bought back several of the older properties in and around The Hague from
Frederick William I of Prussia
Frederick William I (german: Friedrich Wilhelm I.; 14 August 1688 – 31 May 1740), known as the "Soldier King" (german: Soldatenkönig), was King in Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg from 1713 until his death in 1740, as well as Prince of Neuch ...
in 1732.
The palace then remained a summer-residence of the House of Orange-Nassau until the death of Queen
Wilhelmina in 1962. In 1960 Queen Wilhelmina had declared that when she died the private estate surrounding the palace would go to the State. She did, however, request that it would be returned to her family if the Dutch were to abolish the monarchy. The former crown properties surrounding the palace became property of the Dutch State in 1962 when Wilhelmina died at Het Loo Palace. Her daughter,
Queen Juliana
Juliana (; Juliana Louise Emma Marie Wilhelmina; 30 April 1909 – 20 March 2004) was Queen of the Netherlands from 1948 until her abdication in 1980.
Juliana was the only child of Queen Wilhelmina and Prince Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Sh ...
, never lived there, but her younger daughter,
Princess Margriet
Princess Margriet Francisca of the Netherlands (born 19 January 1943) is the third daughter of Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard. As an aunt of the reigning monarch, King Willem-Alexander, she is a member of the Dutch Royal House and currently ...
, lived in the right wing until 1975.
The building was renovated between 1976 and 1982. Since 1984, the palace is a
state museum open for the general public, showing interiors with original furniture, objects and paintings of the House of Orange-Nassau. It also houses a library devoted to the House of Orange-Nassau and the ''Museum van de Kanselarij der Nederlandse Orden'' (Museum of the Netherlands Orders of Knighthood's Chancellery) with books and other material concerning decorations and medals. The building is a ''
rijksmonument
A rijksmonument (, ) is a national heritage site of the Netherlands, listed by the agency Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE) acting for the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
At the end of February 2015, the Netherlands ...
'' and is among the
Top 100 Dutch heritage sites
The Top 100 Dutch heritage sites is a list of rijksmonuments in the Netherlands, established in 1990 by the Department for Conservation ( Monumentenzorg, today the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed). The Top 100 was a selection of historical ...
.
Architecture
The
Dutch Baroque architecture
Dutch Baroque architecture is a variety of Baroque architecture that flourished in the Dutch Republic and its colonies during the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century. (Dutch painting during the period is covered by Dutch Golden Age painting).
Li ...
of Het Loo takes pains to minimize the grand stretch of its construction, so emphatic at Versailles, and present itself as just a fine gentleman's residence. Het Loo is not a
palace
A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...
but, as the title of its engraved portrait (''illustration, below'') states, a ''"Lust-hof"'' (a retreat, or "pleasure house"). Nevertheless, it is situated ''entre cour et jardin'' ("between courtyard and garden") as Versailles and its imitators, and even as fine Parisian private houses are. The dry paved and gravelled courtyard, lightly screened from the road by a wrought-iron grille, is domesticated by a traditional plat of box-bordered green, the homely touch of a cross in a circle one might find in a bourgeois garden. The volumes of the palace are rhythmically broken in their massing. They work down symmetrically, expressing the subordinate roles of their use and occupants, and the final outbuildings in Marot's plan extend along the public thoroughfare, like a well-made and delightfully ordinary street.
Garden
The private "Great Garden" is situated behind the house. This Dutch
Baroque garden
The Baroque garden was a style of garden based upon symmetry and the principle of imposing order on nature. The style originated in the late-16th century in Italy, in the gardens of the Vatican and the Villa Borghese gardens in Rome and in the ga ...
, often nicknamed the "
Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
of Holland", actually serves to show more differences than similarities. It is still within the general Baroque formula established by
André le Nôtre
André Le Nôtre (; 12 March 1613 – 15 September 1700), originally rendered as André Le Nostre, was a French landscape architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France. He was the landscape architect who designed the gar ...
: perfect symmetry, axial layout with radiating gravel walks,
parterre
A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the part of ...
s with fountains, basins and statues.
The garden as it appears in the engraving was designed by Le Nôtre's nephew,
Claude Desgotz
Claude Desgots (or Desgotz; c. 1658 – 1732) was a French architect and landscape architect, who designed French formal gardens in France and England. He worked with and was strongly influenced by André Le Nôtre, the designer of the gardens a ...
.
[Two proposals by Desgotz for the Great Garden, one substantially as it appears in the engraving, in the National Museum, Stockholm, are illustrated by Runar Strandberg, "The French formal garden after Le Nostre", in ''The French Formal Garden'', Elizabeth B. MacDougall and F. Hamilton Hazlehurst, editors, 1974, (Dumbarton Oaks) figs 15 (substantially as executed) and 16.] Throughout his military and diplomatic career, William of Orange was the continental antagonist of
Louis XIV
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of Vers ...
, the commander of the forces opposed to those of absolute power and Roman Catholicism. André Le Nôtre's main axis at Versailles, continued by the canal, runs up to the horizon.
Daniel Marot
Daniel Marot or Daniel Marot the Elder (1661–1752) was a French-born Dutch architect, furniture designer and engraver at the forefront of the classicizing Late Baroque Louis XIV style. He worked for a long time in England and the Dutch Republic ...
and Desgotz's Het Loo garden does not dominate the landscape as Louis' German imitators do, though in his idealized plan, Desgotz extends the axis. The main garden, with conservative rectangular beds instead of more elaborately shaped ones, is an enclosed space surrounded by raised walks, as a Renaissance garden might be, tucked into the woods for private enjoyment, the garden not of a king but of a
stadhouder
In the Low Countries, ''stadtholder'' ( nl, stadhouder ) was an office of steward, designated a medieval official and then a national leader. The ''stadtholder'' was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and H ...
. At its far end a shaded crosswalk of trees disguised the central vista. The orange trees set out in wooden boxes and wintered in an
orangery
An orangery or orangerie was a room or a dedicated building on the grounds of fashionable residences of Northern Europe from the 17th to the 19th centuries where orange and other fruit trees were protected during the winter, as a very large ...
, which were a feature of all gardens, did double duty for the House of Orange-Nassau.
Outside the garden there are a few straight scenic
avenues, for following the hunt in a carriage, or purely for the vista afforded by an avenue. Few of the "green rooms" cut into the woodlands in imitation of the ''cabinets de verdure'' of Versailles that are shown in the engraving were ever actually executed at Het Loo.
The patron of the Sun King's garden was
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
.
Peter the Great
Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...
would opt for
Samson
Samson (; , '' he, Šīmšōn, label= none'', "man of the sun") was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Book of Judges (chapters 13 to 16) and one of the last leaders who "judged" Israel before the institution o ...
, springing the jaws of Sweden's heraldic lion. William opted for
Hercules
Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures.
The Romans adapted the Gr ...
.
In the 18th century, William IIIs Baroque garden as seen in the engraving was replaced by an
English landscape garden
The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (french: Jardin à l'anglaise, it, Giardino all'inglese, german: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, pt, Jardim inglês, es, Jardín inglés), is a sty ...
.
The lost gardens of Het Loo were fully restored beginning in 1970 and completed in time to celebrate the building's 1984 tercentenary. Het Loo's new brickwork,
latticework
__NOTOC__
Latticework is an openwork framework consisting of a criss-crossed pattern of strips of building material, typically wood or metal. The design is created by crossing the strips to form a grid or weave.
Latticework may be functional &nda ...
and ornaments are as raw as they must have been in 1684 and will mellow with time.
Het Loo House
Het Loo House was built in the palace grounds in 1975, as a home for
Princess Margriet
Princess Margriet Francisca of the Netherlands (born 19 January 1943) is the third daughter of Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard. As an aunt of the reigning monarch, King Willem-Alexander, she is a member of the Dutch Royal House and currently ...
and Mr
Pieter van Vollenhoven
Pieter van Vollenhoven Jr. (born April 30, 1939) is the husband of Princess Margriet of the Netherlands and a member, by marriage, of the Dutch Royal House.
Early life and career
Van Vollenhoven was born in Schiedam, he is the second son of Pi ...
. It is largely single-storey and in a modern style of its time.
Visitors
The museum had 249,435 visitors in 2012 and 410,000 visitors in 2013. It was the
8th most visited museum in the Netherlands in 2013.
Gallery
File:Palce Het Loo Apeldoorn with Restaurant in classical "Royal" style - panoramio.jpg, Dinner Room
File:Paleis Het Loo - new diningroom 20120912-11 1.JPG, The new diningroom
File:Paleis Het Loo, interior pic48.JPG,
File:Paleis Het Loo, interior pic16.JPG, The Main Stair
File:Paleis Het Loo, (6488535457).jpg, The Backside of the palace
File:Het Loo Hauptachse.JPG, The Garden
See also
*
List of Baroque residences
This is a list of Baroque architecture, Baroque palaces and Residenz, residences built in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Baroque architecture is a building style of the Baroque, Baroque era, begun in late 16th-century Italy and spread in Europe ...
*
De Naald – a monument near Het Loo
*
Het Oude Loo
Notes
External links
Paleis Het LooPaleis Het Loo
{{Authority control
Baroque gardens
Baroque palaces in the Netherlands
Buildings of the Dutch Golden Age
Gardens in the Netherlands
Historic house museums in the Netherlands
History museums in the Netherlands
Houses completed in 1686
Landscape design history
Museums in Apeldoorn
National museums of the Netherlands
Palaces in the Netherlands
Rijksmonuments in Apeldoorn
Royal residences in the Netherlands
Tourist attractions in Gelderland
1686 establishments in the Dutch Republic