Mosque Schwetzingen, Cultural heritage monument in Schwetzingen Palace Gardens, Germany
Mosque Schwetzingen is a garden building in the palace park with two slender minarets and a central dome. The interior displays elaborate geometric patterns, finely carved woodwork, and rooms oriented for prayer.
Nicolas de Pigage built this garden mosque between 1779 and 1795 for Elector Charles Theodore of Bavaria. The building followed inspirations from London and arose during an era when European courts collected Eastern architectural styles.
The inscriptions on the walls blend Arabic script with German text, conveying thoughts about wisdom and tolerance. The space shows how 18th-century Enlightenment thinking mixed Eastern forms with European ideas.
The building sits in the palace garden and is reached through the park, with access depending on the park's seasonal opening times. It helps to explore the surrounding Turkish Garden to understand the entire layout in its context.
The Arabic inscriptions were chiseled in 1794 by German stonemasons who made several errors in the script. These mistakes remain visible today and tell of the challenge these craftsmen faced in accurately reproducing a foreign writing system.
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