Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles was the principal royal residence of France from 1682, under Louis XIV, until the start of the French Revolution in 1789, under Louis XVI. It is located in the department of Yvelines, in the region of Île-de-France, about 20 kilometres southwest of the centre of Paris; the palace is now a Monument historique and UNESCO World Heritage site, notable for the ceremonial Hall of Mirrors, the jewel-like Royal Opera, the royal apartments. The Palace was stripped of all its furnishings after the French Revolution, but many pieces have been returned and many of the palace rooms have been restored. In 2017 the Palace of Versailles received 7,700,000 visitors, making it the second-most visited monument in the Île-de-France region, just behind the Louvre and ahead of the Eiffel Tower; the site of the Palace was first occupied by a small village and church, surrounded by forests filled with abundant game. It was owned by the priory of Saint Julian. King Henry IV went hunting there in 1589, returned in 1604 and 1609, staying in the village inn.
His son, the future Louis XIII, came on his own hunting trip there in 1607. After he became King in 1610, Louis XIII returned to the village, bought some land, in 1623-24 built a modest two-story hunting lodge on the site of the current marble courtyard, he was staying there in November 1630 during the event known as the Day of the Dupes, when the enemies of the King's chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu, aided by the King's mother, Marie de' Medici, tried to take over the government. The King sent his mother into exile. After this event, Louis XIII decided to make his hunting lodge at Versailles into a château; the King purchased the surrounding territory from the Gondi family, in 1631–1634 had the architect Philibert Le Roy replace the hunting lodge with a château of brick and stone with classical pilasters in the doric style and high slate-covered roofs, surrounding the courtyard of the original hunting lodge. The gardens and park were enlarged, laid out by Jacques Boyceau and his nephew, Jacques de Menours, reached the size they have today.
Louis XIV first visited the château on a hunting trip in 1651 at the age of twelve, but returned only until his marriage to Maria Theresa of Spain in 1660 and the death of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661, after which he acquired a passion for the site. He decided to rebuild and enlarge the château and to transform it into a setting for both rest and for elaborate entertainments on a grand scale; the first phase of the expansion was supervised by the architect Louis Le Vau. He added two wings to the forecourt, one for servants quarters and kitchens, the other for stables. In 1668 he added three new wings built of stone, known as the envelope, to the north and west of the original château; these buildings had nearly-flat roofs covered with lead. The king commissioned the landscape designer André Le Nôtre to create the most magnificent gardens in Europe, embellished with fountains, basins, geometric flower beds and groves of trees, he added two grottos in the Italian style and an immense orangerie to house fruit trees, as well as a zoo with a central pavilion for exotic animals.
After Le Vau's death in 1670, the work was taken over and completed by his assistant François d'Orbay. The main floor of the new palace contained two symmetrical sets of apartments, one for the king and the other for the queen, looking over the gardens; the two apartments were separated by a marble terrace, overlooking the garden, with a fountain in the center. Each set of apartments was connected to the ground floor with a ceremonial stairway, each had seven rooms, aligned in a row. On the ground floor under the King's apartment was another apartment, the same size, designed for his private life, decorated on the theme of Apollo, the Sun god, his personal emblem. Under the Queen's apartment was the apartment of the Grand Dauphin, the heir to the throne; the interior decoration was assigned to Charles Le Brun. Le Brun supervised the work of a large group of sculptors and painters, called the Petite Academie, who crafted and painted the ornate walls and ceilings. Le Brun supervised the design and installation of countless statues in the gardens.
The grand stairway to the King's apartment was soon redecorated as soon as it was completed with plaques of colored marble and trophies of arms and balconies, so the members of the court could observe the processions of the King. In 1670, Le Vau added a new pavilion northwest of the chateau, called the Trianon, for the King's relaxation in the hot summers, it was surrounded by flowerbeds and decorated with blue and white porcelain, in imitation of the Chinese style. The King spent his days in Versailles, the government and courtiers, numbering six to seven thousand persons, crowded into the buildings; the King ordered a further enlargement, which he entrusted to the young architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart. Hadouin-Mansart added two large new wings on either side of the original Cour Royale, he replaced Le Vau's large terrace, facing the garden on the west, with what bec
Rijksmuseum
The Rijksmuseum is a Dutch national museum dedicated to arts and history in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Concertgebouw; the Rijksmuseum was founded in The Hague in 1800 and moved to Amsterdam in 1808, where it was first located in the Royal Palace and in the Trippenhuis. The current main building was designed by Pierre Cuypers and first opened in 1885. On 13 April 2013, after a ten-year renovation which cost € 375 million, the main building was reopened by Queen Beatrix. In 2013 and 2014, it was the most visited museum in the Netherlands with record numbers of 2.2 million and 2.47 million visitors. It is the largest art museum in the country; the museum has on display 8,000 objects of art and history, from their total collection of 1 million objects from the years 1200–2000, among which are some masterpieces by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer. The museum has a small Asian collection, on display in the Asian pavilion.
In 1795, the Batavian Republic was proclaimed. The Minister of Finance Isaac Gogel argued that a national museum, following the French example of The Louvre, would serve the national interest. On 19 November 1798, the government decided to found the museum. On 31 May 1800, the National Art Gallery, precursor of the Rijksmuseum, opened in Huis ten Bosch in The Hague; the museum exhibited around 200 paintings and historic objects from the collections of the Dutch stadtholders. In 1805, the National Art Gallery moved within The Hague to the Prince William V Gallery, on the Buitenhof. In 1806, the Kingdom of Holland was established by Napoleon Bonaparte. On the orders of king Louis Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, the museum moved to Amsterdam in 1808; the paintings owned by that city, such as The Night Watch by Rembrandt, became part of the collection. In 1809, the museum opened in the Royal Palace in Amsterdam. In 1817, the museum moved to the Trippenhuis; the Trippenhuis turned out to be unsuitable as a museum.
In 1820, the historical objects were moved to the Mauritshuis in The Hague and in 1838, the 19th-century paintings "of living masters" were moved to king Louis Bonaparte's former summer palace Paviljoen Welgelegen in Haarlem. In 1863, there was a design contest for a new building for the Rijksmuseum, but none of the submissions was considered to be of sufficient quality. Pierre Cuypers participated in the contest and his submission reached the second place. In 1876, a new contest was held and this time Pierre Cuypers won; the design was a combination of renaissance elements. The construction began on 1 October 1876. On both the inside and the outside, the building was richly decorated with references to Dutch art history. Another contest was held for these decorations; the winners were B. van Hove and J. F. Vermeylen for the sculptures, G. Sturm for the tile tableaus and painting and W. F. Dixon for the stained glass; the museum was opened at its new location on 13 July 1885. In 1890, a new building was added a short distance to the south-west of the Rijksmuseum.
As the building was made out of fragments of demolished buildings, the building offers an overview of the history of Dutch architecture and has come to be known informally as the'fragment building'. It is known as the'south wing' and is branded the Philips Wing. In 1906, the hall for the Night Watch was rebuilt. In the interior more changes were made between the 1920s and 1950s - most multi-coloured wall decorations were painted over. In the 1960s exposition rooms and several floors were built into the two courtyards; the building had some minor renovations and restorations in 1984, 1995–1996 and 2000. A renovation of the south wing of the museum known as the'fragment building' or'Philips Wing', was completed in 1996, the same year that the museum held its first major photography exhibition featuring its extensive collection of 19th-century photos. In December 2003, the main building of the museum closed for a major renovation. During this renovation, about 400 objects from the collection were on display in the'fragment building', including Rembrandt's The Night Watch and other 17th-century masterpieces.
The restoration and renovation of the Rijksmuseum are based on a design by Spanish architects Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz. Many of the old interior decorations were restored and the floors in the courtyards were removed; the renovation would have taken five years, but was delayed and took ten years to complete. The renovation cost € 375 million; the reconstruction of the building was completed on 16 July 2012. In March 2013, the museum's main pieces of art were moved back from the'fragment building' to the main building; the Night Watch returned at the end of the Hall of Fame. On 13 April 2013, the main building was reopened by Queen Beatrix. On 1 November 2014, the Philips Wing reopened with the exhibition Modern Times: Photography in the 20th Century. Cornelis Sebille Roos Cornelis Apostool Jan Willem Pieneman Johann Wilhelm Kaiser Frederik Daniël Otto Obreen Barthold Willem Floris van Riemsdijk Frederik Schmidt-Degener David Röell Arthur F. E. van Schendel Simon Levie Henk van Os Ronald de Leeuw Wim Pijbes Taco Dibbits The building of the Rijksmuseum was designed by Pierre Cuypers and opened in 1885.
It consists of two squares with an atrium in each centre. In the central axis is a tunnel with the entrances at ground level and the Gallery of Honour at the first floor; the building a
King
King, or king regnant is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen regnant, while the title of queen on its own refers to the consort of a king. In the context of prehistory and contemporary indigenous peoples, the title may refer to tribal kingship. Germanic kingship is cognate with Indo-European traditions of tribal rulership. In the context of classical antiquity, king may translate in Latin as rex and in Greek as archon or basileus. In classical European feudalism, the title of king as the ruler of a kingdom is understood to be the highest rank in the feudal order subject, at least nominally, only to an emperor. In a modern context, the title may refer to the ruler of one of a number of modern monarchies; the title of king is used alongside other titles for monarchs: in the West, emperor, duke or grand duke, in the Middle East, sultan or emir, etc. The term king may refer to a king consort, a title, sometimes given to the husband of a ruling queen, but the title of prince consort is sometimes granted instead.
A king dowager is the male equivalent of the queen dowager. A king father is a king dowager, the father of the reigning sovereign; the English term king is derived from the Anglo-Saxon cyning, which in turn is derived from the Common Germanic *kuningaz. The Common Germanic term was borrowed into Estonian and Finnish at an early time, surviving in these languages as kuningas; the English term "King" translates, is considered equivalent to, Latin rēx and its equivalents in the various European languages. The Germanic term is notably different from the word for "King" in other Indo-European languages, it is a derivation from the term *kunjom "kin" by the -inga- suffix. The literal meaning is that of a "scion of the kin", or "son or descendant of one of noble birth"; the English word is of Germanic origin, refers to Germanic kingship, in the pre-Christian period a type of tribal kingship. The monarchies of Europe in the Christian Middle Ages derived their claim from Christianisation and the divine right of kings influenced by the notion of sacral kingship inherited from Germanic antiquity.
The Early Middle Ages begin with a fragmentation of the former Western Roman Empire into barbarian kingdoms. In Western Europe, the kingdom of the Franks developed into the Carolingian Empire by the 8th century, the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England were unified into the kingdom of England by the 10th century. With the breakup of the Carolingian Empire in the 9th century, the system of feudalism places kings at the head of a pyramid of relationships between liege lords and vassals, dependent on the regional rule of barons, the intermediate positions of counts and dukes; the core of European feudal manorialism in the High Middle Ages were the territories of the former Carolingian Empire, i.e. the kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire. In the course of the European Middle Ages, the European kingdoms underwent a general trend of centralisation of power, so that by the Late Middle Ages there were a number of large and powerful kingdoms in Europe, which would develop into the great powers of Europe in the Early Modern period.
In the Iberian Peninsula, the remnants of the Visigothic Kingdom, the petty kingdoms of Asturias and Pamplona, expanded into the kingdom of Portugal, the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon with the ongoing Reconquista. In southern Europe, the kingdom of Sicily was established following the Norman conquest of southern Italy; the Kingdom of Sardinia was claimed as a separate title held by the Crown of Aragon in 1324. In the Balkans, the Kingdom of Serbia was established in 1217. In eastern-central Europe, the Kingdom of Hungary was established in AD 1000 following the Christianisation of the Magyars; the kingdoms of Poland and Bohemia were established within the Holy Roman Empire in 1025 and 1198, respectively. In Eastern Europe, the Kievan Rus' consolidated into the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which did not technically claim the status of kingdom until the early modern Tsardom of Russia. In northern Europe, the tribal kingdoms of the Viking Age by the 11th century expanded into the North Sea Empire under Cnut the Great, king of Denmark and Norway.
The Christianization of Scandinavia resulted in "consolidated" kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, by the end of the medieval period the pan-Scandinavian Kalmar Union. Fifteen kings are recognized as the heads of state of sovereign states. Most of these are heads of state of constitutional monarchies. Thomas J. Craughwell, 5,000 Years of Royalty: Kings, Princes, Emperors & Tsars. David Cannadine, Simon Price, Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies. Jean Hani, Sacred Royalty: From the Pharaoh to the Most Christian King. Media related to Kings at Walter Alison. "King". Encyclopædia Britannica. 15. Pp. 805–806
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a country located in Northwestern Europe. The European portion of the Netherlands consists of twelve separate provinces that border Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, the North Sea to the northwest, with maritime borders in the North Sea with Belgium and the United Kingdom. Together with three island territories in the Caribbean Sea—Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba— it forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; the official language is Dutch, but a secondary official language in the province of Friesland is West Frisian. The six largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Tilburg. Amsterdam is the country's capital, while The Hague holds the seat of the States General and Supreme Court; the Port of Rotterdam is the largest port in Europe, the largest in any country outside Asia. The country is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union.
It hosts several intergovernmental organisations and international courts, many of which are centered in The Hague, dubbed'the world's legal capital'. Netherlands means'lower countries' in reference to its low elevation and flat topography, with only about 50% of its land exceeding 1 metre above sea level, nearly 17% falling below sea level. Most of the areas below sea level, known as polders, are the result of land reclamation that began in the 16th century. With a population of 17.30 million people, all living within a total area of 41,500 square kilometres —of which the land area is 33,700 square kilometres —the Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. It is the world's second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products, owing to its fertile soil, mild climate, intensive agriculture; the Netherlands was the third country in the world to have representative government, it has been a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a unitary structure since 1848.
The country has a tradition of pillarisation and a long record of social tolerance, having legalised abortion and human euthanasia, along with maintaining a progressive drug policy. The Netherlands abolished the death penalty in 1870, allowed women's suffrage in 1917, became the world's first country to legalise same-sex marriage in 2001, its mixed-market advanced economy had the thirteenth-highest per capita income globally. The Netherlands ranks among the highest in international indexes of press freedom, economic freedom, human development, quality of life, as well as happiness; the Netherlands' turbulent history and shifts of power resulted in exceptionally many and varying names in different languages. There is diversity within languages; this holds for English, where Dutch is the adjective form and the misnomer Holland a synonym for the country "Netherlands". Dutch comes from Theodiscus and in the past centuries, the hub of Dutch culture is found in its most populous region, home to the capital city of Amsterdam.
Referring to the Netherlands as Holland in the English language is similar to calling the United Kingdom "Britain" by people outside the UK. The term is so pervasive among potential investors and tourists, that the Dutch government's international websites for tourism and trade are "holland.com" and "hollandtradeandinvest.com". The region of Holland consists of North and South Holland, two of the nation's twelve provinces a single province, earlier still, the County of Holland, a remnant of the dissolved Frisian Kingdom. Following the decline of the Duchy of Brabant and the County of Flanders, Holland became the most economically and politically important county in the Low Countries region; the emphasis on Holland during the formation of the Dutch Republic, the Eighty Years' War and the Anglo-Dutch Wars in the 16th, 17th and 18th century, made Holland serve as a pars pro toto for the entire country, now considered either incorrect, informal, or, depending on context, opprobrious. Nonetheless, Holland is used in reference to the Netherlands national football team.
The region called the Low Countries and the Country of the Netherlands. Place names with Neder, Nieder and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in places all over Europe, they are sometimes used in a deictic relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Oben, Superior or Haut. In the case of the Low Countries / Netherlands the geographical location of the lower region has been more or less downstream and near the sea; the geographical location of the upper region, changed tremendously over time, depending on the location of the economic and military power governing the Low Countries area. The Romans made a distinction between the Roman provinces of downstream Germania Inferior and upstream Germania Superior; the designation'Low' to refer to the region returns again in the 10th century Duchy of Lower Lorraine, that covered much of the Low Countries. But this time the corresponding Upper region is Upper Lorraine, in nowadays Northern France; the Dukes of Burgundy, who ruled the Low Countries in the 15th century, used the term les pays de par deçà for the Low Countries as opposed to les pays de par delà for their original
Apeldoorn
Apeldoorn is a municipality and city in the province of Gelderland in the centre of the Netherlands. It is a regional centre; the municipality of Apeldoorn, including villages like Beekbergen, Loenen and Hoenderloo, had a population of 160,852 in 2017. The western half of the municipality lies on the Veluwe ridge, the eastern half lies in the IJssel valley. John Berends of the CDA is the mayor of Apeldoorn; the oldest known reference to Apeldoorn called Appoldro, dates from the 8th century. The settlement came into being at the point where the old road from Amersfoort to Deventer crossed that from Arnhem to Zwolle. A 1740 map refers to it as Appeldoorn. Close by is the favourite country-seat of the royal family of the Netherlands called the palace het Nieuwe Loo, it was a hunting lodge of the dukes of Gelderland, but in its present form dates chiefly from the time of the Stadtholder William III of England. The younger sister of Princess Beatrix, Princess Margriet, lives nearby the palace Het Loo, with her husband Pieter van Vollenhoven.
Apeldoorn was a insignificant place until the major building projects of the 19th century and those of the period following World War II. The Protestant church was restored after a fire in 1890; the Roman Catholic Mariakerk is a national monument. Apeldoorn possesses large paper-mills,many offices, a newspaper company, some hospitals and nursing homes. With over 95,000 people working in the municipality, Apeldoorn is one of the most important employment centres in the eastern Netherlands. Apeldoorn has several important educational institutes, such as the Saxion University of Applied Sciences, the Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands Police Academy and the Theological University of Apeldoorn. In 2008 the largest paper mill of what was left of "Van Gelder Papier" after reorganizations went bankrupt, in 1996 a devastating fire destroyed the remnants of the last part of the original factory, other parts of the production facility that remained are now in use as production facility by AFP, Loparex B.
V. and Owens Corning Veil Netherlands B. V. On the entire industrial estate now known as "Van Gelder Park" are now located a local head office of Rabobank and it houses the main police and fire department offices among with some other local companies like Futurumshop sporting goods, Akos engineering and Werklust load lifters, On the west side of this estate at the Laan van Westenenk there are still the buildings of one of the largest news printing companies of the region, moved to this location in 1993, but they closed in 2016 after reorganization, the buildings are now in use by other companies. Apeldoorn has been well known in the past as a town of paper making and clothing wash company's because of the clean filtered groundwater that seeps through the sand of the ice age formed ”stuwwallen” down to the “Ijselvallei” on the east of Apeldoorn. Apeldoorn has now a considerable meat processing industry with production and storage facilities of among others. V. HSL Locistics but this will be as of January 2018 merged with GVT Logistics, Sandd, HCA Holland Colours, Royal Reesink N.
V. UPS, DHL, FedEx, Royal Talens,VDL Weweler, I. T. S. BV. Beekman transport, Kisjes transport and container rental. In August 2018 PostNL opened a large package sorting center at the Oude Apeldoornseweg, newly build at the industrial area now known as “FizzionParc” but once was known as an industrial estate of Philips Data Systems, the new PostNL location will provide work for around 400 employees. On November 27, 2018 a rapid spreading fire destroyed the largest store of “Karwei” DIY centers in The Netherlands, located at the Laan van de Dierenriem in Apeldoorn, no one was injured. Apeldoorn is known for its large number of used car dealers. Apeldoorn had until a few years ago a production facility that produced basic materials for medicine production operated by Akzo Diosynth, but production was seized here, the terrain located at the Vlijtseweg is now renamed after the product, produced here before that, Zwitsal, it is now known as “Zwitsal Apeldoorn” and the former facility now houses lots of new local businesses like beer brewery “De Vlijt”.
Apenheul is a zoo which hosts a number of different types of apes and monkeys, some of which are free to walk around the visitors. It is situated at the western edge of Apeldoorn and can be reached by local bus 2, 3 and 5. There is an amusement park situated in Apeldoorn, called the Koningin Juliana Toren, it lies on the road to Hoog Soeren. It is called the Koningin Juliana Toren because of the tower, built in 1910 and was named after Queen Juliana; the local hospital is the Gelre Hospital "Lukas", offering secondary health care to Apeldoorn and the surrounding towns. Apeldoorn railway station is, among regular national and international services, the terminus for the Veluwse Stoomtrein Maatschappij, a preserved steam railway that r
Palace
A palace is a grand residence a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name Palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which housed the Imperial residences. Most European languages have a version of the term, many use it for a wider range of buildings than English. In many parts of Europe, the equivalent term is applied to large private houses in cities of the aristocracy. Many historic palaces are now put to other uses such as parliaments, hotels, or office buildings; the word is sometimes used to describe a lavishly ornate building used for public entertainment or exhibitions, such as a movie palace. The word palace comes from Old French palais, from Latin Palātium, the name of one of the seven hills of Rome; the original "palaces" on the Palatine Hill were the seat of the imperial power while the "capitol" on the Capitoline Hill was the religious nucleus of Rome. Long after the city grew to the seven hills the Palatine remained a desirable residential area.
Emperor Caesar Augustus lived there in a purposely modest house only set apart from his neighbours by the two laurel trees planted to flank the front door as a sign of triumph granted by the Senate. His descendants Nero, with his "Golden House", enlarged the house and grounds over and over until it took up the hill top; the word Palātium came to mean the residence of the emperor rather than the neighbourhood on top of the hill. Palace meaning "government" can be recognized in a remark of Paul the Deacon. AD 790 and describing events of the 660s: "When Grimuald set out for Beneventum, he entrusted his palace to Lupus". At the same time, Charlemagne was consciously reviving the Roman expression in his "palace" at Aachen, of which only his chapel remains. In the 9th century, the "palace" indicated the housing of the government too, the travelling Charlemagne built fourteen. In the early Middle Ages, the palas was that part of an imperial palace, that housed the Great Hall, where affairs of state were conducted.
In the Holy Roman Empire the powerful independent Electors came to be housed in palaces. This has been used as evidence that power was distributed in the Empire. In modern times, the term has been applied by archaeologists and historians to large structures that housed combined ruler and bureaucracy in "palace cultures". In informal usage, a "palace" can be extended to a grand residence of any kind; the earliest known palaces were the royal residences of the Egyptian Pharaohs at Thebes, featuring an outer wall enclosing labyrinthine buildings and courtyards. Other ancient palaces include the Assyrian palaces at Nimrud and Nineveh, the Minoan palace at Knossos, the Persian palaces at Persepolis and Susa. Palaces in East Asia, such as the imperial palaces of Japan, Vietnam, Thailand and large wooden structures in China's Forbidden City, consist of many low pavilions surrounded by vast, walled gardens, in contrast to the single building palaces of Medieval Western Europe; the Brazilian new capital, Brasília, hosts modern palaces, most designed by the city's architect Oscar Niemeyer.
The Alvorada Palace is the official residence of Brazil's president. The Planalto Palace is the official workplace; the Jaburu Palace is the official residence of Brazil's vice-president. Rio de Janeiro, the former capital of the Portuguese Empire and the Empire of Brazil, houses numerous royal and imperial palaces as the Imperial Palace of São Cristóvão, former official residence of the Brazil's Emperors, the Paço Imperial, its official workplace and the Guanabara Palace, former residence of Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil. Besides palaces of the nobility and aristocracy; the city of Petropolis, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, is known for its palaces of the imperial period such as the Petrópolis Palace and the Grão-Pará Palace. In Canada, Government House is a title given to the official residences of the Canadian monarchy and various viceroys. Though not universal, in most cases the title is the building's sole name; the use of the term Government House is an inherited custom from the British Empire, where there were and are many government houses.
Rideau Hall is, since 1867, the official residence in Ottawa of both the Canadian monarch and his or her representative, the Governor General of Canada, has been described as "Canada's house". It stands in Canada's capital on a 0.36 km2 estate at 1 Sussex Drive, with the main building consisting of 175 rooms across 9,500 m2, 27 outbuildings around the grounds. While the equivalent building in many countries has a prominent, central place in the national capital, Rideau Hall's site is unobtrusive within Ottawa, giving it more the character of a private home. Along with Rideau Hall, the Citadelle of Quebec known as La Citadelle, is an active military installation and official residence of both the Canadian monarch and the Governor General, it is located atop adjoining the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City, Quebec. The citadel is the oldest military building in Canada, forms part of the fortifications of Quebec City
Claude Desgots
Claude Desgots was a French architect and landscape architect, who designed French formal gardens in France and England. He worked with and was influenced by André Le Nôtre, the designer of the gardens at Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles that set the pattern for grand gardening in France up to the Revolution. In spite of increasing competition from the informal English landscape style, the French tradition was kept vital through apprenticeship connections in the generation following Le Nôtre's death in 1700, a principal representative in this tradition was Claude Desgots, "a worthy heir and a great talent in gardening", remarked the master teacher of architecture Jacques-François Blondel. Claude Desgots was born in Paris, the son of Pierre II Desgots and Martine Servelle, who were married in 1654. Pierre II was a landscape designer and draughtsman, who worked with André Le Nôtre on the gardens at the Château de Chantilly, he was the son of Le Nôtre's sister and Pierre I Desgots, who had succeeded his brother Jean Desgots as the gardener of the Tuileries in 1624.
In 1675 Claude Desgots was sent on a bursary to the French Academy in Rome, from c. 1679 he collaborated with his father and Le Nôtre on the gardens at Chantilly. He worked for a while on the gardens at Versailles and succeeded his father as the gardener of the Tuileries upon the latter's death in 1688; when William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland was ambassador to Paris in 1698, he convinced Desgots to return with him to England, where Desgots worked out plans for the Queen's House and parterres for Windsor Castle, in part bringing up to date earlier plans made by Le Nôtre. Nothing came of the English adventure, except that William III of England, Stadthouder in the Netherlands, commissioned him to draw up plans for the gardens at Het Loo, which have been replanted to Desgots' designs. Back in France once more, he was appointed Designer of the parterres of the Royal Houses and Controller of the King's Works, doubtless due to the family connection, he was employed by Phillipe II, duc d'Orléans, the Regent during Louis XV's minority, for whom his design at the Palais Royal introduced smooth hillocks with clipped designs of palmettes, which became a familiar feature of formal French pattern-gardens in the eighteenth century.
Desgots took on as a pupil, c. 1720-25, the Swedish architect and garden designer Carl Hårleman, the close collaborator and correspondent of Carl Gustav Tessin. Hårleman was the prime mover in perpetuating the French formal garden in eighteenth-century Sweden. In 1730 Desgots published a short biography of André Le Nôtre, an important source of information about his mentor. Desgots married Brigide Marion, daughter of Antoine Marion, an employee of the Menus-Plaisirs du Roi and intendant of the Marquis of Béringhen, Premier Écuyer of the Petite Écurie, their son François Desgots, who became captain of a royal vessel, was one of Le Nôtre's principal heirs. Claude Desgots' son-in-law was Jean-Charles Garnier d'Isle, who succeeded Desgots in 1732 as designer of royal gardens under Louis XV; the following projects were identified by Runar Strandberg, 1974: In France Palais du Luxembourg, Paris. Replanning Jacques Boyceau's gardens after the death of the Grande Mademoiselle Clagny. Minor adjustments in Le Nôtre's executed design.
Rambouillet, c. 1705 Château de Sablé, 1711. Designed the house and gardens. Château de Champs, built 1703-07 to designs by J.-B. de Chamblain. Château de Meudon from 1715 Château de Chaville from 1715 Château d'Anet. Monumental staircase for the duc de Venôme, new gardens replacing the sixteenth-century parterres of Androuet du Cerceau. Château de Perrigny, Burgundy. Château de Bagnolet, 1727. Palais Royal, Paris, c. 1723-1730. Abroad Schleissheim, Bavaria Queen's House, England. 1698. Not executed. Windsor Castle, England. 1698. Not executed. Het Loo, Netherlands. Notes Bibliography Desgots, Claude. "Abrégé de la vie d'André Le Nostre", in Continuation des mémoires de littérature et d'histoire, Tome IX, Partie II. Paris: Simart, pp. 459–471. Garrigues, Dominique. Jardins et jardiniers de Versailles au grand siècle. Seyssel: Champ Vallon. ISBN 9782876733374. Guiffrey, Jules. Andreé Le Nostre, English translation by George Booth of the 1913 French edition. Lewes, Sussex: The Book Guild. ISBN 9780863321511. Hazlehurst, F. Hamilton.
Gardens of Illusion: The Genius of André Le Nostre. Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press. ISBN 9780826512093. Mariage, Thierry; the World of André Le Nôtre, translated by Graham Larkin. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0812234685. Strandberg, Runar. "The French formal garden after Le Nostre", in The French Formal Garden, Elizabeth B. MacDougall and F. Hamilton Hazlehurst, editors. Dumbarton Oaks. Listings at WorldCat. Taylor, Susan B.. "Desgots" in The Dictionary of Art, 34 volumes, edited by Jane Turner, reprint with minor corrections. New York: Grove. ISBN 9781884446009. Thompson, Ian; the Sun King's Garden. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781582346311. Collection.nationalmuseum.se
