The palace in the Great Garden

From 1678 to 1683 the Crown Prince and later Elector of Saxony, Johann Georg III. commissioned the Court's Master of Building works, Johann Georg to build the palace in the Great Garden. The architect integrated stylistic elements of Italian renaissance villas into his design, and combined the "Lusthaus" type with what was then a new form of palace construction from France.

The palace is constructed on an H-shaped ground plan with a central nave and side wings. The vestibule on the ground floor is a hall with cross vaults. The ballroom on the upper floor was originally richly decorated with ornamentations. The ballroom features a sumptuous collection of artworks by master artists including paintings by Samuel Bottschild and sculptures by Jeremias Süßner.

The palace was designed for the court's summer festivities and was not intended as a place of habitation. It played an important role in the wedding celebrations of August the Strong's son, the Crown Prince Friedrich August of Saxony and the Austrian Arch duchess Maria Josepha in 1719. From 1730 to 1747 194 antiquities from the Ghigi and Albani collections were displayed in the palace. From 1841 to 1945 it served the Royal Saxon Antiquity Association as an exhibition building for primarily sacred art works.

When it was destroyed by the Anglo American air raid in February 1945 it burned to the ground and the internal decoration and the Association's collection were lost. Shortly after the war, measures to protect and preserve the building were implemented.

In 2002/2003 students studying Building Surveying at Dresden's University for Technology and Economics, led by Prof. Dr. Walter, recorded and surveyed the palace in the Great Garden.
The first "flight" around the palace was produced as part of this project. Quicktime player is required to play the film: it is available free of charge and will install automatically if required. You can start to play the film by double clicking on the picture.