Wilhelmshöhe Palace

Stand still for a moment on the wide gravel forecourt. Listen to the small crunch of stones under your shoes, and to the wind moving through old trees on the hillside above. In front of you, pale stone columns hold up a long, calm façade. Behind you, the land falls away toward the city of Kassel. Above you, far up the slope, a giant copper figure stands on a stone pyramid. This is Wilhelmshöhe Palace, and everything around you was designed to be seen together.

The palace sits inside the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe, a vast landscaped park on the eastern slopes of the Habichtswald hills. In 2013, UNESCO added the park to its World Heritage list. The listing honours the whole composition, not just one building. That composition includes the palace, the Hercules monument at the summit, a mock medieval castle, and a remarkable system of water features. The palace is the anchor of that system. It is the point where the wild hillside meets the ordered city.

The building you see took shape in the late eighteenth century, between 1786 and 1798. It was commissioned by Landgrave Wilhelm the Ninth of Hesse-Kassel. A landgrave was a German prince who ruled a territory. Wilhelm later rose in rank and became Elector Wilhelm the First. Two architects led the work. The first was Simon Louis du Ry, and the second was Heinrich Christoph Jussow. Together they gave Kassel one of the most important neoclassical residences in Germany.

Neoclassical means a style that borrows from ancient Greek and Roman temples. Look at the columns, the triangular pediments, and the even rhythm of the windows. Here is a detail many visitors miss. The palace began as three separate buildings. Two side wings came first, set at angles. The central block followed. Only later were the three pieces joined into the single sweeping form you see today. Walk along the façade, and you can still feel those three distinct parts.

Before this palace, the site held something very different. A monastery called Weissenstein once stood on this hillside. After it was dissolved, the rulers of Hesse used the site for a hunting lodge and a modest residence. For a long time the whole area carried the Weissenstein name. Wilhelm the Ninth swept away the older buildings and renamed the place Wilhelmshöhe. The name simply means William's Heights. The southern wing still carries the old name. It is called the Weissenstein Wing.

Now for the first surprise. For a few years, this was not a German prince's palace at all. In 1807, Napoleon created a new Kingdom of Westphalia, with Kassel as its capital. He placed his youngest brother, Jérôme Bonaparte, on the throne. Jérôme moved in and renamed the residence Napoleonshöhe, or Napoleon's Heights. His reign was short. When Napoleon's empire collapsed in 1813, Jérôme fled, and the Elector of Hesse returned to reclaim his home.

The second surprise links the same family again, more than half a century later. In 1870, during the war between France and the German states, the French Emperor Napoleon the Third was captured at the Battle of Sedan. He was Jérôme's nephew. The Prussians sent him here, to Wilhelmshöhe, as a prisoner. He was held in comfort, not in a cell. Still, history has a dry sense of humour. The nephew came as a captive to the palace his uncle once ruled as king.

In the decades that followed, Kassel became part of Prussia. The palace turned into a summer residence for the German emperors, and Kaiser Wilhelm the Second spent time here. Then, at the end of the First World War, the German army's supreme command moved its headquarters to Wilhelmshöhe for a period. So the halls behind these windows saw kings, captives, emperors, and generals, all within about a hundred years.

The Second World War brought the hardest chapter. Allied bombing raids struck Kassel heavily in 1943, and the palace was badly damaged. The central block burned out. After the war, it was rebuilt, but not as an exact copy. The original central dome was not restored. Instead, the centre received a simpler, more restrained form. If you study the building closely, you can see where postwar reconstruction meets the older eighteenth-century stone of the wings.

Today the palace is a museum. The main building houses the Old Masters Picture Gallery, one of Germany's important collections of European painting. It is especially strong in Dutch and Flemish art. The gallery holds a significant group of works by Rembrandt. Among them is Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph, a tender, glowing scene of an old man and his grandsons. The building also displays ancient sculpture and objects. Meanwhile, the Weissenstein Wing preserves historic rooms that show how the household once lived.

Turn around and face uphill. You are standing on a long, deliberate line. From the Hercules monument at the summit, the cascades and paths run down toward the palace. From the palace, a straight avenue runs east toward the centre of Kassel. The planners wanted the ruler's home to sit exactly on this axis. Nature, power, and city were meant to read as one idea, laid out across the landscape.

On certain days in the warm season, water is released from reservoirs near the top of the hill. It tumbles down the stone cascades, past grottoes and bridges, and through a waterfall. At the end, it rises from a lake near the palace as a tall fountain. The whole system runs mostly on gravity, using techniques that were advanced for their time. Off to one side of the park, you may also glimpse the Löwenburg, a castle built to look like a medieval ruin, designed by the same Jussow who worked on this palace.

Before you move on, look once more at the façade in front of you. Notice how the light settles on the columns and how the stone changes colour as clouds pass. Think of the people who stood where you stand now: a prince planning his heights, a young king far from home, an emperor waiting in captivity. Then let your eyes travel up the hill to Hercules. As you walk away, listen for the trees, the gravel, and perhaps the distant sound of moving water.