Turkish Tower

One of the most interesting collections of Neoclassical and Romantic buildings can be found situated along the Thaya on the border between Austria and Moravia. Along the seven-kilometer avenue which connected their residences at Feldsberg (Valtice) and Eisgrub (Lednice), the princes of Liechtenstein laid out a landscape garden on the English model with buildings from a variety of different architectural styles. From the 13th century to 1945 both locations were inextricably linked to the House of Liechtenstein, and in the 16th century Feldsberg became the main seat of the princes, along with their summer residence at Eisgrub. It was towards the end of the 18th century that Prince Johann Josef I began to regulate the countryside, laying out the gigantic landscape garden that still exists today.

The princes’ architects, Joseph Hardtmuth, Joseph Kornhäusel and Franz Engel created an architecture of follies, pavilions, miniature palaces and all the other accoutrements of an English garden in Feldsberg and Eisgrub.

The model for this park was principally provided by the garden at W�rlitz near Dessau. Among the most impressive buildings in the park is the 68-m-high Turkish Tower which Joseph Hardtmuth built in 1797 as a viewing platform by the Swan Lake (excavated in 1790). The podium of the octagonal tower is built on a square ground plan, whose perimeter is marked by an arcade. Each of the three arches of the arcade corresponds to three round arched windows in the floor above. Piers continue past the cornice to become small towers, and the individual floors of the tower are separated from each other by external galleries.