A prince’s new town cut out of a forest: thirty-two straight rays from the palace tower, nine of them streets fanning south between the palace wings to a long cross street, twenty-three of them rides through the woods; uniform houses under mansard roofs, parterres and pavilions behind the palace.
In 1715 Margrave Karl Wilhelm of Baden-Durlach laid the foundation stone of a new residence in the Hardt forest and called it Karlsruhe, Charles’s rest. The plan began as a hunting star: thirty-two straight rides radiating from a tower. The palace was built just south of the tower with its wings splayed along two of the rays, and the nine rays between the wings became the streets of the town. A curved street, the Circle, runs round the palace square; the Lange Straße cuts across the fan further south; and where the main axis crosses it lies the market square with the church and town hall. The other twenty-three rays run on through the forest.
The margrave’s letter of privileges offered settlers free land, freedom of religion and relief from taxes, but they had to build to model designs: two storeys on the Circle and the main streets, lower houses elsewhere, all under mansard roofs, so that the town reads as a single composition around the palace. Behind the palace, the garden follows the French rules codified by Dezallier d’Argenville: parterres of embroidery next to the house, bosquets and water beyond, pavilions for pleasure on the cross axis, then the long rides into the woods. It is the town as Laugier would soon describe it, a forest cut into by straight avenues.
The Rococo was chiefly a style of interiors and gardens; its towns are the residences of German princes, of which Karlsruhe (1715) and Ludwigsburg (from 1709) are clear examples. The stone palace and much of the later town date from the second half of the century.