Schloss Muskau


Schloss Muskau is a schloss in the Görlitz district in the state of Saxony, Germany. It is located in an extended park, the Muskau Park, since July 2004 a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The building complex was developed over a long period. The present main building, called Neues Schloss, was built in the 19th century in Neo-Renaissance style.

Geography

Muskau Park is the largest and one of the most famous English landscape gardens in Central Europe, stretching along both sides of the German–Polish border on the Lusatian Neisse.

History

The park was laid out from 1815 onwards at the behest of Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau. Pückler reconstructed the medieval fortress as the "New Castle", the compositional centre of the park, with a network of paths radiating from it and a pleasure ground influenced by the ideas of Humphry Repton, whose son John Adey worked at Muskau from 1822 on. The extensions went on until 1845, when Pückler because of his enormous debts was constrained to sell the patrimony. The next year it was acquired by Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, who employed Eduard Petzold, Pückler's disciple and a well-known landscape gardener, to complete his design. Upon his death in 1881, he was succeeded by his daughter Princess Marie, who sold the estates to the Count von Arnim.

Literature