Schinkel's Look towards India

Text in German & English. Schinkel's Look towards India discusses a subject to which little attention has been paid to date: Schinkel's interest in Indian architecture and culture. This interest was first aroused by the English traveller to India William Hodges, who proposed the thesis that Greek and Indian architecture were of equal value. Later, the English landscape painters Thomas and William Daniell were to become even more important for Schinkel. Oriental Scenery, the book that described their travels, left its mark on Europe's image of India for decades and inspired longing for that country, which was considered almost magical. The cultural elite of Prussia were also caught up in this fascination. At the royal court of Prussia, Lalla Rookh, based on Thomas Moore's romance, was celebrated in 1821 as an oriental festival. In 1822 the Indian-themed pageant Nurmahalwas performed at the opera. For both productions Schinkel created enchantingly beautiful stage sets. His interest in exotic architecture was lifelong. The sketches he based on the work of the Daniells were preliminary studies for a huge round panorama that was to show the buildings of various periods and nations in their particular setting. His unrealised project for the summer palace Orianda on the Crimea, at the geographical interface of eastern and western culture, was Schinkel's convincing and timeless memorial to his dream of the unity of world cultures. The style of the exterior is classical, while that of the interior is Indian and Islamic. The work is character-ized by the hall of caryatids that lies in front of the building, with a view of the Black Sea, and the museum of Caucasian antiquities, its counterpart in the interior of the palace. Schinkel found the idea for the museum in Oriental Scenery, in the drawings of the legendary 1000-Pillar Hall in Madurai, in southern India, which the Daniells had toured full of admiration and included in their book.