Huis ter Nieuwburg

Infobox building
building_name = Huis ter Nieuwburg
native_building_name=

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caption = Front view of the palace in 1665
former_names =
map_type =
building_type = Palace
architectural_style = French Classicism
structural_system =
cost =
location = Rijswijk, Dutch Republic
address =
client = Prince Frederick Henry
owner = Princes of Orange Kings of Prussia
current_tenants =
landlord =
coordinates = coord|52.04898|4.327615|display=inline
start_date = 1633
completion_date = 1636
inauguration_date =
demolition_date = 1790
destruction_date =
height =
diameter =
other_dimensions =
floor_count =
floor_area =
main_contractor =
architect = Jacques de la Vallée
structural_engineer =
services_engineer =
civil_engineer =
other_designers =
quantity_surveyor =
awards =
references =

Huis ter Nieuwburg or Huis ter Nieuburch (English: "House at New Borough") was a palace in Rijswijk, Holland, Dutch Republic. The symmetrical French Classicist building was probably designed by the French architect Jacques de la Vallée and was built between 1633 and 1636 for stadtholder Prince Frederick Henry.

The palace was the country house of the Princes of Orange for years, and it was used for the peace negotiations resulting in the Treaty of Rijswijk in 1697. After the death of Prince William III in 1702, the palace was inherited by the Kings of Prussia, until it was given back to the Princes of Orange by King Frederick II.

The gardens of the palace were geometrical French gardens constructed in 1636. In front of the palace were trees and "parterres" enclosed by walls. Behind the palace was a larger garden with four rectangular ponds.

The building, after being neglected for years, was demolished in 1790. At present, the area is woodland known as the Rijswijkse Bos. The only reminders of the palace are two of the ponds and an obelisk commemorating the peace treaty.

Building

In 1630, stadtholder Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange bought the old "Huis ter Nieuwburg" from Philibert Vernatti for ƒ 30,000 (€ 13,613) . The house was located in the Plaspolder, a polder in the village Rijswijk, in between the cities The Hague and Delft.nl icon cite web
title = Huis te Nieuwburg
work = Inventaris van het archief van de Nassause Domeinraad
publisher = Nationaal Archief
url = http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/webviews/page.webview?eadid=NL-HaNA_1.08.11&pageid=N251ED
accessdate = 2008-08-02 ] At that time, The Hague was the political center of the Dutch Republic where the States-General assembled, and Delft was the city where Prince Frederick Henry was born and where his father William the Silent had his residence and was assassinated and buried in 1584.nl icon cite web
last = Poelhekke
first = J.J.
title = Hoofdstuk XXXI
work = Frederik Hendrik. Prins van Oranje. Een biografisch drieluik
publisher = Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren
date = 2008
url = http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/poel003fred01_01/poel003fred01_01_0032.htm
accessdate = 2008-08-04 ]

Between 1630 and 1632, the Prince of Orange bought more land and two houses in the area surrounding the house in order to build a new country house on the location of Vernatti's old house. The project of the new "Huis ter Nieuwburg" was tendered in 1633. The first pavilions of the palace were finished in 1634 and its roof was completed in 1636.nl icon cite web
title = Huis te Nieuwburg
work = Inventaris van het archief van de Nassause Domeinraad
publisher = Nationaal Archief
url = http://www.nationaalarchief.nl/webviews/page.webview?eadid=NL-HaNA_1.08.11&pageid=N251ED
accessdate = 2008-08-02 ] During his life, Prince Frederick Henry had built large houses conform the newest styles in architecture and by the best available architects. [nl icon cite web
last = Poelhekke
first = J.J.
title = Hoofdstuk XXVI
work = Frederik Hendrik. Prins van Oranje. Een biografisch drieluik
publisher = Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren
date = 2008
url = http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/poel003fred01_01/poel003fred01_01_0027.htm
accessdate = 2008-08-04 ] It is probable that the French architect Jacques de la Vallée had designed this palace.

The symmetrical building was designed in the architectural style of French Classicism. The "corps de logis" with the main chambers of the palace was positioned on the axis of symmetry. where Prince Frederick Henry's parents, brother, and two daughters were buried at the time the palace was built. [cite web
title = The royal burial vaults
publisher = Nieuwe Kerk
url = http://www.nieuwekerk-delft.nl/eng/kerkgebouw/huis_van_oranje/koninklijke_grafkelders.html
accessdate = 2008-08-04 ] Both on the east and the west side of the "corps de logis" is a wing, perpendicular to the axis, with a pavilion at the end.

Gardens

The geometrical French gardens and ponds were constructed from 1636. They were illustrated as they had become fully developed and matured in Jan van Vianen's engraving after Petrus Schenck, which records the grand diplomatic gathering that led to the Treaty of Rijswyck, signed in the house. The entire garden was surrounded by a rectangle of canals that drained the ground and formed the equivalent of a moat; [Outhouses overhanging the moat, into one of which a figure is hastening, appear in P. Schenck's detailed view.] around its inner banks allées of trees isolated the pleasure grounds from the featureless agricultural landscape outside. [This is unlike the French ideal, of a formal garden cut out of surrounding forest.] Entry was across one of three bridges and through a formal woodland or "bocage", through which three drives were pierced: the central one led through a free-standing Doric portal—guarded by sentry-boxes on this occasion—that was centred on a pedimented central gate in the mock-battlemented wall that enclosed the paved and cobbled forecourt. [The cobbles have been misleadingly tinted green in the modern watercoloring applied to this engraving; the movements of coaches in the forecourt of both engravings show that it could not have been turfed.] Right and left of this axial entrance, reserved during the treaty negotiations for the Mediator, were matching unemphasised entrances—perhaps opened in the walling for the occasion [They do not appear in the engraving of 1665 ("illustration").] —destined, as the engraving's legend specifies, for the French representatives on the right and for those of the Allies on the left; clearly, this will have avoided tense protocol confrontations over which coach would enter the "cour d'honneur" first. The north front of the "Huis" with its paired corner pavilions was separated from the forecourt by a low balustraded terrace that created a privileged zone that protected the parade rooms from the immediate clatter of the courtyard and the inconvenient leavings of horses. For the duration of the negotiations, temporary brick walls had been erected to divide the entrance court from its flanking parterre gardens; in ordinary times, openings in the terrace balustrade and a few steps gave direct access to these gardens, where fruit trees were espaliered against the brick walls. [The engraving shows how the temporary walls ran up to the central pier of the four-bay pavilions, dividing them abruptly in half, and leaving the opening in the terrace balustrade to one side, hard against the partition.] The central axis continued through the central rooms of the "corps de logis" and was extended as a wide gravelled walk down the axis of the pleasure grounds, which it divided symmetrically on either side; at the far end, the enclosing narrow band of trees drew back in a semi-circular exedra that parted at the center to afford a view of the church steeple of Delft on the horizon, centred on the garden axis. [The 1697 engraving emphasises this distant end-point of the garden axis by centering both axis and steeple in the bird's-eye view.]

The grounds thus enclosed and divided featured a symmetrical suite of six parterres that were planted—rather than with the clipped patterns relieved with colored gravel of Le Nôtre's French manner—as formal "bosquets" of trees laid out quincunx-fashion and separated by wide gravelled walks. In the four outer corners of the grounds that were articulated by these shady sections were four rectangular ponds, the "vijvers" of which two survive today. At the outside front corners were a pair of mock fortifications with corner bastions all in tightly-clipped evergreens, entered by arched doorways. [Perhaps since there were two, absolutely equal, they had been run up as green-painted trelliswork covered with vines, specifically for the treaty negotiations, whose distinctly "galante" social character is indicated by the staffage of the van Vianen engraving, of groups of fashionable ladies, gentlemen saluting passing coaches with courtly bows, running footmen, pages, dogs and the occasional beggar rewarded with a coin.] Two separate gardens enclosed by brick walls extended east and west of the end pavilions. The eastward one was planted with evergreens surrounding a circular central rockwork fountain, from which is derived its name "De Rots", "The Rockery". The westward one was the "De Meloen Tuin", the melon garden.

Owners and tenants

The palace was built as a country house and used by the Princes of Orange, the stadtholders of six of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic, and the de facto rulers of the country. [cite web
title = Stadtholder
work = Encyclopedia Britannica
publisher =
date = 1911
url = http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/SOU_STE/STADTHOLDER_Du_stadhouder_a_del.html
accessdate = 2008-08-02 ]

In 1697, the palace was used for the negotiations that lead to the Treaty of Rijswijk. The treaty settled the Nine Years' War between France and the Grand Alliance of England, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic. [cite web
title = Treaty Of Ryswick
work = Encyclopedia Britannica
publisher =
date = 1911
url = http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/RON_SAC/RYSWICK_TREATY_OF.html
accessdate = 2008-08-02 ] After the death of King William III of England, who was also the Prince of Orange, the house was under the supervision of the "Nassause Domeinraad" (English: "Domain Council of Nassau") from 1702 to 1732. After the inheritance of King William III was settled, the palace became the property of King Frederick William I of Prussia in 1732. His successor, King Frederick II of Prussia, gave the palace back to the Princes of Orange, to Prince William IV, as an act of friendship.

In 1753, the palace was rented to Count Golofkin, ambassador for Tsarina Anna of Russia.

Demolition

In 1789, the architect P.W. Schonk advised Prince William V to demolish the palace, because it had been neglected for years. Also he advised to use the money raised by selling properties and real estate for a monument for the Treaty of Rijswijk. Following this advise, the palace was demolished in 1790 and the stables and the coach-house were sold in 1793. From 1792 to 1794, the "Naald van Rijswijk" (English: "Obelisk of Rijswijk") was built, an obelisk commemorating the peace treaty. [nl icon cite web
title = Geschiedenis, feiten en cijfers
publisher = Gemeente Rijswijk
url = http://www.rijswijk.nl/content.jsp?objectid=28207
accessdate = 2008-08-02 ]

At present, the area around the obelisk is woodland known as the Rijswijkse Bos, which is open to the public. The only other reminders of "Huis ter Nieuwburg" are two rectangular ponds from the French gardens, now enclosed in woodland. [nl icon cite web
title = Rondwandeling "Van Vredenburchweg / Julialaantje"
publisher = Landgoederenzone Rijswijk
url = http://landgoederen.onafhankelijkrijswijk.nl/html/wandeling_vredenburch.html
accessdate = 2008-08-02 ]

The Museum Rijswijk in Rijswijk has engravings, medals, and books related to the Treaty of Rijswijk and paintings of the palace in its collection. [nl icon cite web
title = Museum Rijswijk
publisher = Museum Rijswijk
url = http://www.museumryswyk.nl/nl/index.html
accessdate = 2008-08-03 ]

References

External links