Amalienburg
A hunting lodge in the park at Nymphenburg, built for the consort of Elector Charles Albert. The exterior is plain, but the Hall of Mirrors at its centre is one of the masterpieces of the Rococo: silver stucco on a blue ground, with mirrors and windows that dissolve the walls in light.
Amalienburg was built in 1734–1739 in the park of Nymphenburg Palace outside Munich. It was commissioned by Elector Charles Albert of Bavaria, later Holy Roman Emperor, who gave the pavilion to his consort Maria Amalia, a Habsburg princess. She was a keen huntress, and the building was both a hunting pavilion and a pleasure palace. The architect, François de Cuvilliés, came from Hainaut in the Spanish Netherlands, began as a court dwarf and was then trained in Paris, where he learned the ornament of the French Rococo. The stucco work was by Johann Baptist Zimmermann and the woodcarving by Joachim Dietrich. The building is of brick with rendered façades. On the roof is a platform from which the party could shoot pheasants driven out in the park.
The pavilion has only one storey and a symmetrical plan. At the centre is the round Hall of Mirrors, which bows out towards the garden. The walls consist of alternating mirrors and windows, and the silver stucco on a pale blue ground depicts plants, birds, musical instruments and hunting motifs, which climb up into the ceiling. On either side are a bedroom and a resting room with yellow and silver decoration, a hunting room with paintings and a room with pheasant motifs. One room has built-in kennels for the hunting dogs, and the kitchen is lined with blue and white tiles from the Netherlands. The plainness of the façade contrasts strongly with the brilliance of the interior. The rooms are arranged en enfilade so that the eye travels through all the doorways.
Amalienburg has survived without major alterations and is now managed by the Bavarian palace administration together with the rest of Nymphenburg. The pavilion was restored in the 20th century, when the colour scheme and gilding were repaired. It is regarded as one of the principal works of European Rococo and as the high point of South German Rococo. Cuvilliés later built the Residenztheater in Munich, and his ornamental engravings spread across Europe and became models for craftsmen. In Sweden the Rococo developed during the same period, with the interiors of Carl Hårleman and Jean Eric Rehn, and pleasure pavilions in gardens became a shared European fashion. The Chinese Pavilion at Drottningholm is a Nordic example of the same idea: a small building in a park, centred on privacy, lightness and playfulness.