The Grand Garden of Dresden

The Großer Garten is recognizable by its rigid, rectangular grid of wide, tree-lined avenues that extend for nearly two square kilometers. Established in sixteen seventy-six by Elector Johann Georg III as a private hunting ground, the park sits on what was once the outskirts of Dresden’s city walls. Its centerpiece is the Sommerpalais, a Baroque summer palace designed by Johann Georg Starcke and completed in sixteen eighty-three. The palace stands as one of the earliest examples of Baroque secular architecture in the region, built to host lavish courtly festivities and as a seasonal retreat for the Saxon electors.