page_title: Nymphenburg Palace Park
section_title: The French garden
hierarchical_section_title: Nymphenburg Palace Park / History / The French garden
context_page_description: The Nymphenburg Palace Park ranks among the finest and most important examples of garden design in Germany. In combination with the palace buildings, the Grand circle entrance structures and the expansive park landscape form the ensemble of the Nymphenburg Summer Residence of Bavarian dukes and kings, located in the modern Munich Neuhausen-Nymphenburg borough. The site is a Listed Monument, a Protected Landscape and to a great extent a Natura2000 area.
  The exquisite composition of formal garden elements and English-style country park is considered a masterpiece of garden design and the spacious complex of palace and park has always been a popular attraction for local residents and tourists alike. To the east the park adjoins the palace buildings and the Grand circle. To the south and west the park is largely enclosed by the original Garden wall and borders the Botanical Garden to the north and beyond Menzinger Straße the park peripherie partly merges with the Kapuzinerhölzl forest.
  The designs of the original Baroque gardens had largely been modeled on the French gardens at Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles.
context_section_description: From 1701 to 1704 Charles Carbonet altered and extended the garden in the style of the French Baroque. Simultaneously the approximately 2.5 km (1.6 mi) long Pasing-Nymphenburg canal was constructed and connected to the Würm river.
  From 1715 onwards Dominique Girard, who had previously worked in André Le Nôtres Versailles Gardens, realized the spacious arrangements of the park with the support of Joseph Effner, a student of Germain Boffrand. Girard managed to skillfully distribute the water in the formerly dry area. A rectangle of canals was built, that formed an island for the main palace and the Garden parterre. The ca. 900 m (3,000 ft) long Central axis canal sector to the west of the rectangle was added, which ends at the Great Cascade, where it was connected to the Pasing-Nymphenburg canal. In the manner of French models roads were laid out in straight lines and rows of trees and arcades were planted, in order to strictly divide the park. The complex now consisted of two main areas, the ornamental garden near the palace and the forest in the west. The park castles sit on independent, small parterres.
  From 1715 on, Maximilian II Emanuel had the forest outside the palace park transformed into a deer hunting range and enlarged to nearly reach Lake Starnberg. On a larger scale, aisles  and roads were created and three hunting lodges erected.
caption: Nymphenburg Palace and the Great parterre from the west, around 1761
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