[Walk in the park] Austrian gardens house troves of royal and monastic histories

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[Walk in the park] Austrian gardens house troves of royal and monastic histories

Published: 08 Jun. 2022, 18:22 Updated: 08 Jun. 2022, 19:35

Schloss Hof's Baroque garden in Marchfeld, Lower Austria. [SCHLOSS SCHONBRUNN KULTUR-UND BETRIEBSGES.M.B.H/SEVERIN WURNIG]

Austrians like to maintain their palaces and gardens, many of them easily a few centuries old, by giving them enough foot traffic for more accidental discoveries, and rediscoveries, of their beauty.

“It’s a philosophy we have, that old buildings need to be used, that they have to be brought back to life,” said Wolfgang Angerholzer, ambassador of Austria to Korea, speaking at his diplomatic residence with his wife Susanne Angerholzer in Seoul on April 26.

That might explain why the city administration of Salzburg has been operating inside the Mirabell Palace, also a popular site for weddings especially come springtime when the gardens are in full bloom, and why the Blauer Hof, the Baroque castle of Laxenburg south of Vienna, houses international organizations and think tanks and regularly hosts conferences inside halls and quarters that have seen people come and go for the past 300 years.

These historic sites are often nestled within gardens that act as a showcase of the history of the arts and designs of Europe.

“It’s really a Baroque garden designed in the French style; the Versailles was certainly on his mind,” said Susanne Angerholzer, speaking of how the vast gardens of the Schloss Hof, located some 40 miles east from Vienna, were born under the care of Prince Eugene of Savoy.

On the other hand, the gardens of Laxenburg in Lower Austria were designed to take on the wilder look of English landscape gardens, keeping much of the natural contours of the land that used to be hunting grounds for the Habsburg royals.

The alpine garden of Patscherkofel is a sure reminder that Austria is one of the eight nations in the region sharing the mountain range, and the medicinal herb garden of Admont Monastery a testament to a time and age when science and religion went hand in hand.

There are Austrians still today who are coming up with unique gardening ideas, like André Heller, an artist working on “botanical staging” in Marrakesh, Morocco, and Julia Asenbaum, a scent archivist who has captured the scent of Gustav Klimt’s roses from his garden.

To find out more about the treasures and troves of the gardens of Austria, the Korea JoongAng Daily sat down with the Angerholzers at their home in Seoul, surrounded by azaleas in full bloom in their garden.

Wolfgang Angerholzer, ambassador of Austria to Korea, right, and his wife Susanne Angerholzer, left, at their garden fully bloomed with azaleas at the diplomatic residence in Seoul on April 26. [PARK SANG-MOON]

Schloss Hof, a prized gift between couples

Restored to its full glory within the past 15 years, the Schloss Hof stands today as the epitome of Baroque expressions.

Located about an hour's drive east of Vienna, the palace and its vast grounds near the country’s Slovakian border provide an unmatched view.

Designed to provide a different look from each of its seven terraces, the gardens of the estate were commissioned by Prince Eugene of Savoy after he acquired the land in 1725.

Schloss Hof's Baroque garden in Marchfeld, Lower Austria. [SCHLOSS SCHONBRUNN KULTUR-UND BETRIEBSGES.M.B.H/LOIS LAMMERHUBER]

“The seven terraces have an axis in the middle, and the gardens mirror each other along the axis,” said Susanne Angerholzer. “The small entities of the bushes, flowers and stones were designed to give the impression of embroidery work, also known as parterre de broderie.”

The French influence on the prince was not surprising given his childhood spent in the court of King Louis XIV of France.

Remunerated for his many military feats and achievements, Prince Eugene could collect not only the great art works of his time but also the exotic plants and animals, many of which can still be seen on the palace grounds today.

They include the rare Austrian-Hungarian white Baroque donkey and the Lipizzans, the world-famous horses that are born black but become light gray as they age, and the citrus trees in the orangery.

“The palace and its gardens were passed on from Prince Eugene to his niece, who gifted it to her husband Prince Friedrich of Saxony-Hildburghausen upon their marriage in 1738,” said Wolfgang Angerholzer. “After the couple were estranged, Prince Friedrich sold it to Maria Theresa in 1755, who then gifted it to her husband, Francis I Stephen.”

The estate is open to visitors daily. For those traveling by public transportation, a train runs regularly from Vienna Central Station to the Marchegg Station, from where a bus runs directly to Schloss Hof.

Schloss Hof's orangery [SCHLOSS SCHONBRUNN KULTUR-UND BETRIEBSGES.M.B.H/SEVERIN WURNIG]

Laxenburg and its castle on a lake

The name Blauer Hof, or the Blue Court, may seem deceiving for visitors to Laxenburg, the favorite summer palace of many Habsburg monarchs.

“The castle itself is not blue; the name comes from the brothers who used to own the estate, the Blauensteiners, before it came under the ownership of Maria Theresa,” said Wolfgang Angerholzer.

Laxenburg, a vast estate home to three castles — the medieval Old Laxenburg Castle, the baroque Blauer Hof and the neo-gothic Franzensburg, or the Francis Castle — is just half an hour away by car from the center of Vienna.

Formerly the monarchs’ hunting grounds, the gardens of the estate were designed to keep to the natural contours of the land, comparable to English landscape gardens.

The castle park, pet-friendly and family-friendly, is open all year round.

Franzensburg, or Francis Castle, a medieval castle in Laxenburg in lower Austria [SCHLOSS LAXENBURG]

History buffs in particular may want to take the ferry to reach Franzensburg, which sits in the middle of a lake. For it is in this castle that its commissioner, Emperor Francis, the first of the newly founded Austrian Empire, wished to install the hall of fame of his ancestors.

“In 1804, the Habsburgs founded the Empire of Austria, as a political answer to Napoleon crowning himself as the emperor of France,” said Wolfgang Angerholzer. “As emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburgs had a very long tradition. But the Austrian empire was something very new. So the idea was to have a castle where all the history of the Habsburgs would be compiled. It became a place of identification for the new empire with an old dynasty.”

Inside one of the castles in Laxenburg. [SCHLOSS LAXENBURG]

Laxenburg can be reached by buses running from Vienna, with an average ride of 30 minutes. Hop off at the Laxenburg Franz-Josephs Platz station, just a three-minute walk away from the castles and their gardens.

Mirabell, the classic view of Salzburg

Sitting at the center of Salzburg, the gardens of Mirabell provide a classic view of the city, with the palace of Mirabell on one side and the rest of Salzburg against the backdrop of the Northern Limestone Alps on the other.

Rose garden at Mirabell garden in Salzburg [TOURISMUS SALZBURG]

The palace, built in 1606 by Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau for his beloved Salome Alt, is a popular location today for weddings, with couples often seen posing for photos on the “Angel Staircase” leading up to the Marble Hall of the palace.

The gardens have kept the original Baroque design of the 17th century, and are open daily from 6 a.m. till dusk. Art aficionados may appreciate a trip to the Thaddaeus Ropac gallery that sits by the gardens. The gallery specializes in international contemporary art.

Admont Monastery’s thousands of herbs and books

Located in Styria Province, also known as the green heart of Austria, the Admont Monastery dates back to the 11th century when it was founded by the Benedictines from Salzburg.

Its library, the biggest monastery library in the word, is a signature Baroque creation, with its frescoed cupola and seven ceiling frescoes and limewood carvings.

The Admont Library [STEFAN LEITNERA]

“The abbey holds some 200,000 books, including over 1,400 manuscripts, some of which date back to the 8th century, and the 530 incunabula, or books printed before the 16th century,” said Wolfgang Angerholzer.

The abbey’s herb gardens were established in 1998. Divided into six geometric squares, the gardens hold over 1,000 different kinds of plants, and, following the monastic practices, they have a combination of decorative, medicinal and agricultural plants.

There is no entrance fee, but the gardens and the abbey grounds, which also house a museum of art works as well as garments and rare needlework dating back centuries, are open only certain hours and days of the week, depending on the season.

Gardens of Admont Abbey [THOMAS SATTLERA]

Patscherkofel alpine garden, 2,000 meters high

Don’t let the impressive height of the alpine garden scare you off: There is a cable car that runs straight to the garden.

Located close to Innsbruck, the garden has been located on a peak of Mount Patscherkofel since 1930 when the University of Innsbruck decided to preserve the nature and borrow its powers to see if non-native alpine plants near extinction would find the environment conducive to its growth.

Patscherkofel alpine garden [UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK]

“They are very beautiful up close, as alpine plants tend to be,” said Susanne Angerholzer.

In June, the Alpine roses in soft shades of lilac cover all of the mountain. There is no entrance fee to the gardens.

Patscherkofel alpine garden [UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK]

Anima by André Heller

If you were to ask André Heller, an Austrian artist who wears many hats in the fields of theater, music and performance, what exactly it is that he does, he would say, “I make dreams come true.”

The garden Anima in Marrakesh is designed with a combination of trees, flowers and sculptures, placed and crafted with such a bold defiance of the rules and concepts of gardens, that Der Standard, a local media outlet based in Vienna, dubbed it the “African Garden of Eden.”

“The garden doesn’t follow any rules,” said Susanne Angerholzer. “If anyone were to ask him why he created the garden, he’d say that it was to make a place where people could be happy, where they could meditate […] It’s not just a place to look at, it is where you would come to [be] yourself.”

Garden Anima. [ANIMA]

Klimt's roses

Austria’s love for gardens is evident in another recent project by scent archivist Julia Asenbaum, who has captured the scent of Gustav Klimt’s roses, still growing outside his studio in Vienna.

Instead of capturing flower scents through distillation or extraction, Asenbaum collects aroma chemicals in the air around the living flower.

“Rose scents are a bit like wine — you always recognize them as a rose scent, but at the same time they are all different,” Asenbaum told the Korea JoongAng Daily on Tuesday.

Klimt's rose [ÖSTERREICH WERBUNG/KLIMT VILLA]

According to Asenbaum, the top notes of Klimt's rose are very fresh and fruity with hints of green pear, due to the chemical hexenyl acetate, and lemon. The mid notes are flowery and fruity with hints of honey and apple, due to “phenyl ethyl alcohol and beta damascene,” and the base note is the “classic powdery rose note” of Persian rose oil “with hints of black pepper.”

“And although this is all so complex and it [may have] nothing to do with the human world, we can walk through a garden, smell a rose and just perceive it as pure beauty and it makes us happy,” she said, adding that one day she hopes to bring an exhibition to Seoul to bring the same scent of roses that Klimt used to enjoy in his garden.

Emilie Floge in a reform dress and Gustav Klimt in his painter's smock in the garden of Villa Oleander on Lake Attersee, 1910. [ÖSTERREICH WERBUNG/KLIMT FOUNDATION]

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]