Draft for the imperial palace Orianda

The Orianda Imperial Palace on the Crimean peninsula can be seen as the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel's ideal solution for a representative summer palace. Commissioned in 1837 by Tsarina Alexandra Fedorovna, Schinkel designed an idealized project that was never realized. Situated on a cliff above the Black Sea, the palace design fascinates by its ambivalence; on the one hand, the representative turn towards the view with a huge terrace and a central caryatid portico, on the other hand, the introverted museum rooms under hanging gardens.