RR9: Europea-(chi)nise??

Chinese Gardens in Europe?

The image found on your left :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dalbera/2731358138/

• In 1585, Pope Gegory XII instructed the Spanish priest priest Juan Gonalez de Mendoza to set down all that was known about China.
• Interest in Europe began to become very interested in Chinese myths and legends which grabbed the interest to write about Chinese architecture in Swedan.
• Soon in 1675, Eureopean courts began to adapt certain Chinese themes for thier gardens. The first teahouse was built by Louis XIV which was made with porcelain patterns tiles.
• The building did not last long at all, because of the leaks in the ceiling. This lesson gave Germans an upper advantage to create the most famous teahouse pictured above built by the Prussian emperor Frederick the Great.

Image found above: Sans Souci, Potsdam
http://www.planetware.com/picture/potsdam-sanssouci-palace-d-d047.htm

• This served as the emperor's summer retreat, which had several pavilons including the teahouse.

What is so intersting is that even though the prinicple of using chinese materials to build Eureopean landscapes and gardens, the chinese use this idea for all the buildings in  China not just for the emperor for the emperor of Prussia. But the Eurepoean and Chinese combination is Very Beautiful!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfgangstaudt/708722692/

"This jewel box of a palace is within an hour's drive of Berlin, through leafy glades and past the former KGB headquarters in Potsdam. It is French-inspired, a modest twelve-room one-storey folly replete with windmills and Oriental overtones. The handsome chambers are richly furnished, the walls covered with the Watteaus that Friedrich II so admired."

-Anonomous