VERSAILLES, THE 'ANCIENT RÉGIME' HAS COME BACK

Merche Jones climbs Vermell del Xincarró, Montserrat

Today, The Jones have revised Countable & Uncountable before visiting the Palace of Versailles. The family has visited this amazing palace and has rested in its gardens sharing personal experiences and talking about their preferences in literature, music and places.

More info: Uncountable List

The Grandma has remembered that today, April 27, is the festivity of our Mary of Montserrat, patron of Catalonia, a black virgin very adored and respected by its populations, believers or not, that represents more than a religious symbol. Montserrat is also a symbol of cultural resistance during the darkest years of prosecutions and disctatorships.

More information: Abbey of Montserrat

If you didn't visit Montserrat, The Jones would recommended to do it. You will enjoy of one of the most incredible natural landscapes, full of activities to do; one of the most libraries around the world; and a spiritual place to rest for believers. Montserrat is much more than a mountain, it's the spiritual symbol of a whole culture which has resisted and survived along the history and which is alive and showing its black virgin to the world.

More information: Alpinist

Joaquín Jones and Ildefons Cerdà's Plan

Versailles is a place of contrasts. For one hand you can visit the Palace but for other hand, in the same city stands up one of the biggest banlieues of Paris.

The family has been talking about last French colonies in North Africa and its results nowadays in architecture, urbanism, immigration, social policies and human rights.

Joaquín Jones has offered his knowledge about Ildefons Cerdà's Urbanistic Plan in l'Eixample in Barcelona, an incredible plan which searched the convivence between all the social classes offering the possibility of living together, offering facilities to everyone and avoiding social exclusion.

More information: Failed Architecture & The Guardian

The Jones have decided to rest in Versailles gardens and talked about their preferences and wishes. They have recommended some books. Ana Bean-Jones has chosen, Banana Yoshimoto's books and Claudia Jones has proposed Màxim Huertas with No me dejes-Ne me quitte pas. 

Some members of The Jones and their preferences

Moreover, Merche Jones has talked about Fernando Aramburu's Patria and Michelle Jones about Masterchef's books. 

Finally, Joaquín Jones has recommended Eduardo Mendoza's No word from Gurb and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World while The Grandma has chosen Herman Melville's Moby Dick and Faïza Guène's Kiffe kiffe demain.

The family has also talked about places to visit. Next week, they're going to leave Paris and their destination is unknown. Paqui Jones has recommended Aix-Les-Bains, a commune in the Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France. It's as a beautiful place to visit although the family has talked about other interesting places like China.

Download Brave New World by Aldous Leonard Huxley

Joaquín Jones is very interested in laboural conditions in this Asian country, especially now when May, 1st is arriving, and The Grandma, who is a great fan of human towers, has expressed her surprised about Chinese culture and its capacity to adapt to new goals without any kind of problems explaining the case of the Xiquets of Hanzghou as a example.

Download Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Ne me quitte pas. Il faut oublier tout 

peut s'oublier qui s'enfuit déjà.

If you go away on this summer day, 

then you might as well take the sun away.

Jacques Brel / Barbra Streisand 

The Palace of Versailles, in French Château de Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France. It is now open as a museum and is a very popular tourist attraction.

King Louis XIV in the Palace of Versailles

When the château was built, the community of Versailles was a small village dating from the 11th century. Today, however, it is a wealthy suburb of Paris.

Versailles was the seat of political power in the Kingdom of France from 1682, when King Louis XIV moved the royal court from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789, within three months after the beginning of the French Revolution. 

Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime.

More information: Château Versailles

Especially under Louis XIV, the senior nobility were pressured to spend large amounts of time at Versailles, as a form of political control. Louis XIV evolved a rigid routine of court life as a performance, much of which took place in front of large groups of people, at some points in the day including tourists. 

Château de Versailles and its gardens

Building the château and maintaining the court there was phenomenally expensive, but did a good deal to establish the dominance of French style and taste in the whole of Europe, giving French luxury manufacturing advantages that long outlasted the fall of the Ancien Régime.

Louis XIV's expansion of the building was begun around 1661, with Louis Le Vau as architect. 

It was not completed until about 1715, having been worked on by architects including François d'Orbay, Charles Le Brun, interiors especially, Jules Hardouin-Mansart and Robert de Cotte. 

André Le Nôtre began the gardens and structures in them. There were a range of satellite buildings around the grounds. While the main château building remains essentially intact, though without much of its contents, some of these other buildings have been destroyed.

Download Château de Versailles by The Grandma

It is legal because I wish it. I am the state. 

Louis XIV

CHARLOTTEENBURG PALACE: IN HONOUR OF SOPHIE

The Charlottenburg Palace Entrance

Charlottenburg Palace is the largest palace in Berlin, Germany.

The palace was built at the end of the 17th century and was greatly expanded during the 18th century. 

It includes much exotic internal decoration in baroque and rococo styles. A large formal garden surrounded by woodland was added behind the palace, including a belvedere, a mausoleum, a theatre and a pavilion. During the Second World War, the palace was badly damaged but has since been reconstructed. The palace with its gardens are a major tourist attraction.

More information: Berlin.de

The original palace was commissioned by Sophie Charlotte, the wife of Friedrich III, Elector of Brandenburg in what was then the village of Lietzow. Originally named Lietzenburg, the palace was designed by Johann Arnold Nering in baroque style. It consisted of one wing and was built in  2 1⁄2 storeys with a central cupola. The façade was decorated with Corinthian pilasters. On the top was a cornice on which were statues. At the rear in the centre of the palace were two oval halls, the upper one being a ceremonial hall and the lower giving access to the gardens. Nering died during the construction of the palace and the work was completed by Martin Grünberg and Andreas Schlüter. The inauguration of the palace was celebrated on 11 July 1699, Frederick's 42nd birthday.

The Bonds arriving to Charlottenburg Palace

Friedrich crowned himself as King Friedrich I in Prussia in 1701. Two years previously, he had appointed Johann Friedrich von Eosander as the royal architect and sent him to study architectural developments in Italy and France, particularly the Palace of Versailles. On his return in 1702, Eosander began to extend the palace, starting with two side wings to enclose a large courtyard, and the main palace was extended on both sides. Sophie Charlotte died in 1705 and Friedrich named the palace and its estate Charlottenburg in her memory. In the following years, the Orangery was built on the west of the palace and the central area was extended with a large domed tower and a larger vestibule. On top of the dome is a wind vane in the form of a gilded statue representing Fortune designed by Andreas Heidt. The Orangery was originally used to overwinter rare plants. During the summer months, when over 500 orange, citrus and sour orange trees decorated the baroque garden, the Orangery regularly was the gorgeous scene of courtly festivities.

More information: Sofia Charlotte of Hannover

Inside the palace, was a room described as the eighth wonder of the world, the Amber Room Bernsteinzimmer, a room with its walls surfaced in decorative amber. It was designed by Andreas Schlüter and its construction by the Danish amber craftsman Gottfried Wolfram started in 1701. Friedrich Wilhelm I gave the Amber Room to Tsar Peter the Great as a present in 1716.

When Friedrich I died in 1713, he was succeeded by his son, Friedrich Wilhelm I whose building plans were less ambitious, although he did ensure that the building was properly maintained. Building was resumed after his son Friedrich II The Great came to the throne in 1740. During that year, stables for his personal guard regiment were completed to the south of the Orangery wing and work was started on the east wing. 

The Bonds visiting Charlottenburg Palace

The building of the new wing was supervised by Georg Wenzeslaus, who largely followed Eosander's design. The decoration of the exterior was relatively simple but the interior furnishings were lavish. 

The ground floor was intended for Frederick's wife Elisabeth Christine, who, preferring Schönhausen Palace, was only an occasional visitor. The decoration of the upper floor, which included the White Hall, the Banqueting Hall, the Throne Room and the Golden Gallery, was lavish and was designed mainly by Johann August Nahl. In 1747, a second apartment for the king was prepared in the distant eastern part of the wing. During this time, Sanssouci was being built at Potsdam and once this was completed Frederick was only an occasional visitor to Charlottenburg.

More information: Berlin Journal

In 1786, Frederick was succeeded by his nephew Friedrich Wilhelm II who transformed five rooms on the ground floor of the east wing into his summer quarters and part of the upper floor into Winter Chambers, although he did not live long enough to use them. His son, Friedrich Wilhelm III came to the throne in 1797 and reigned with his wife, Queen Luise for 43 years. They spent much of this time living in the east wing of Charlottenburg. Their eldest son, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who reigned from 1840 to 1861, lived in the upper storey of the central palace building. After Friedrich Wilhelm IV died, the only other royal resident of the palace was Friedrich III who reigned for 99 days in 1888.

Charlottenburg Palace frontal view

The palace was badly damaged in 1943 during the Second World War. 

In 1951, the war-damaged Stadtschloss in East Berlin was demolished and, as the damage to Charlottenburg was at least as serious, it was feared that it would also be demolished. However, following the efforts of Margarete Kühn, the Director of the State Palaces and Gardens, it was rebuilt to its former condition, with gigantic modern ceiling paintings by Hann Trier. From 2004 till early 2006, Charlottenburg Palace was the seat of the President of Germany, whilst Schloss Bellevue was being renovated.

The garden was designed in 1697 in baroque style by Simeon Godeau who had been influenced by André Le Nôtre, designer of the gardens at Versailles. Godeau's design consisted of geometric patterns, with avenues and moats, which separated the garden from its natural surroundings. Beyond the formal gardens was the Carp Pond. Towards the end of the 18th century, a less formal, more natural-looking garden design became fashionable. In 1787 the Royal Gardener Georg Steiner redesigned the garden in the English landscape style for Friedrich Wilhelm II, the work being directed by Peter Joseph Lenné. After the Second World War, the centre of the garden was restored to its previous baroque style.

More information: Ancient Origins

In 1788, Friedrich Wilhelm II arranged for the building of the Belvedere, designed by Carl Gotthard Langhans, in the grounds beyond the Carp Pond. The building was used as a teahouse and as a viewing-tower. Langhans also designed the Palace Theatre, which was built between 1788 and 1791 to the west of the Orangery wing. The Mausoleum was built as a tomb for Queen Luise between 1810 and 1812 in neoclassical style to a design by Heinrich Gentz. After the death of Friedrich Wilhelm III, it was extended; this design being by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. It was extended again in 1890–91 by Albert Geyer to accommodate the graves of Wilhelm I and his wife Augusta. 

In 1825, Friedrich Wilhelm III added the Neuer Pavilion, an Italianate villa designed by Schinkel, to the north of the palace. This was damaged in the war in 1943 and was reconstructed between 1957 and 1970.

While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings. 

Henry David Thoreau