Orangery

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Orangery in Kuskovo, Moscow (1760s).

An Orangery was a feature of royal and aristocratic residences from the 17th to the 19th centuries. A type of greenhouse, with citrus trees being grown in tubs and wintering under cover, it originated from the Renaissance gardens of Italy, when glass-making technology enabled sufficient expanses of clear glass to be produced. The Orangerie at the Palace of the Louvre, 1617, inspired imitations that were not eclipsed until the development of the modern greenhouse in the 1840s, which was quickly over shadowed by the architecture in glass of Joseph Paxton. Notable for his design of the Crystal Palace his "great conservatory" at Chatsworth House was an orangery and glass house of monumental proportions.

The Orangery, however, was not just a "green house" but a symbol of prestige and wealth and a feature of the garden, in the same way as a summerhouse, folly or "Grecian temple". Owners would conduct their guests there on tours of the garden to admire not only the fruits within but the architecture without. Often the orangery would contain fountains and grottos and an area to sit and take of a light repast.

[edit] European Orangeries

The Orangerieschloss built by Frederick William IV of Prussia in Potsdam in the mid-19th century, in imitation of the Italian Renaissance style

• Château de Versailles
  • Versailles Orangerie
• Tuileries: Orangerie in the Tuileries Gardens, Paris
• Schönbrunn, Vienna
• Peterhof, Bolshaya Kamennya Oranzhereya (1722-25)
• Tsarskoe Selo, Bolshaya Oranzhereya (1762, 1820)
• Kuskovo, Moscow, Oranzhereya (illustration, right)
• Potsdam, Orangerieschloss (illustration, above right)
• Fulda, Orangerie
• Kassel, Orangerie
• Gera, Orangery and "Küchengarten"
• Strasbourg, park of the Orangerie
• Hanover, a part of the Herrenhausen Gardens
• Nynäs Slott, Manorial Estate (Castle) and Orangery, Nynäs, Sweden

[edit] Orangeries in the UK

The Orangery at Kew Gardens. It is now used as a Restaurant

The Orangery at Kew 1761 is the earliest surviving work there by Sir William Chambers. At 28 m (92 ft) long, it was the largest glasshouse in Britain when it was built. Though it was designed as an arcade with end pavilions to winter oranges, the light levels were too low under its solid roof for it to be successful.

• Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew: The Orangery

The Orangery at Margam Park, Wales, was built between 1787 and 1793 to house a large collection of orange, lemon and citron trees inherited by Thomas Mansel Talbot. The original house has been razed, but the surviving Orangery, at 327 feet, is the longest one in Wales.

• Margam Park: Orangery

There is an orangery dating from about 1700 at Kenwood House in London.

[edit] Other Orangeries

In the United States the earliest surviving Orangery is at the Tayloe house, Mount Airy, Virginia but today it is an overgrown ruin.

[edit] Reference

• Mary Woods, Glass Houses: A History of Greenhouses, Orangeries and Conservatories 1996

[edit] External links

• A longer history of the Orangerie