Stuttgart.

Start here for Stuttgart’s grand civic setting: lawns, fountains and a palace frontage beside Königstraße. The appeal is the outdoor ensemble rather than a single interior.

The square lets you take in several versions of central Stuttgart at once. The New Palace supplies the formal backdrop, while the planted lawns and small ornamental structures bring the scale down. Schillerplatz and the Old Castle are close enough to continue the architectural comparison on foot.

Schlossplatz makes the former royal residence part of everyday city space. The New Palace was built between the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and its long frontage still gives the square a courtly scale. Yet the lawns, flowerbeds and fountains make the foreground as important as the building behind them. Look between the broad architectural edges and the smaller ornamental features to see how the square holds both scales together. Its landscape has also changed with Stuttgart’s public life. A major renovation accompanied the 1977 garden show, and the lawns and planting were renewed after the 2006 football World Cup. These layers help explain why this is more than a forecourt preserved around a palace. It is a central open space whose planting and layout have continued to receive attention as the surrounding city changes.

• Concordia crowns the Jubiläumssäule at the centre of the lawns.
• Two fountains flank the planted central space.
• The cast-iron bandstand adds an intricate detail to the palace setting.

Compare the New Palace frontage from across the square before approaching it.

Continue to Schillerplatz for a smaller square enclosed by older buildings.