From Winter 2001
Orangerie: History in the Making

By definition, an orangery is a warm place in which orange trees are cultivated and protected from harsh winter weather. Orangeries have a rich history dating back two thousand years. The precursor to the orangery was the greenhouse, which was built for the preservation and rearing of plants. The first greenhouse on record was built for the Roman emperor Tiberius, who loved cucumbers. The cool Italian climate didn’t allow for year-round cucumbers. So, the emperor's gardeners constructed the first known greenhouse, using mica for windows instead of glass. Glass had been used for thousands of years, but only as a material to make art and dining utensils. Glass was not used as a building material until the era of the great Gothic cathedrals.

Tiberius's greenhouse hardly created a new rage. Not only was the expense prohibitive, but greenhouse technology was in its infancy. It took centuries to evolve. By the late Middle Ages the centers of power and wealth had moved north. The greenhouse idea caught on and began to spread throughout Europe. British and Dutch gardeners, some of them early botanists, constructed heated rooms in order to grow tropical plants and other delicacies in cool climates. The French, who had a passion for the wonderful new fruit, the orange, began setting up structures called orangeries to protect their trees from frost. The cultivation of citrus trees and plants provided the means to create luxury items: perfumes, liqueurs, essential oils, jams, and fruit preserves.

Orangeries had glass roofs, masonry walls and flues carrying heat from wood or coal fires. These structures were cumbersome. One built by Solomon de Caus in Heidelberg around 1619 had removable roof shutters that had to be put up and taken down daily during the frost season. This was no small chore considering the orangery was large enough to house 340 orange trees.

Experiments to improve the greenhouse concept, including angled glass walls and heating flues, continued throughout the seventeenth century. New building technology and improved glass led to larger and larger greenhouses that housed plants to please the eyes and palates of European royalty.

Besides serving as showplaces, the winter garden was a necessary ingredient in the lifestyle of the nobility. Orangeries were often ornate, and served as places for banquets, theatrical productions and festivals. The trees were wheeled outdoors during the warm spring and summer months. During the winter, the lord and lady of the manor house enjoyed taking guests for strolls through the orangery, admiring the exotic plants and inhaling the perfume of tropical flowers. In the summer, when the plants were outside, the building was used as an entertainment area.

Among the most magnificent orangeries of the eighteenth century are those at Versailles, St. Petersburg, and Vienna. The Palace of Versailles was an example of the aristocracy’s elaborate efforts to build bigger and more spectacular orangeries. The Versailles Orangery was more than 500 feet long, 42 feet wide, and 45 feet high, with windows facing south for light and heat.

In Russia, Czar Alexander I was not to be outdone. Between 1801 and 1805, he built three parallel greenhouses in St. Petersburg, each 700 feet long and connected on each end by two more greenhouses of the same length. Sections for tropical plants and fruits towered 40 feet high. The entire structure was heated during the bitter Russian winters by furnaces fueled with birch wood.

A contemporary account of the Vienna building illustrates the orangeries function in the life of the aristocracy. The palace gardener Nicolaus Joseph Jacquin described it as follows:

"A magnificent arched orangery which is perhaps the largest in all Europe with a continuous span 600 feet long, 35 feet wide, and 25 feet high. It would be hard to find an equal. Emperor Josef ordered banqueting tables to be set up in the orangery as he had seen in the St. Petersburg winter garden during his tour. Flowers of all seasons exhaled their fragrance here even in the most severe winter, standing on a magnificent table, all around which stood orange and lemon trees beautifully illuminated, while behind the table there were a play and a ball in progress among this winter assembly room full of blooms. During the Congress of Vienna the Princely guests on the evening of October 11, 1814 dined at two tables with 62 place settings. Visitors saw nothing but the flowering trees and plants, between them, statues and fourfold waterfall streaming over rocks, lit by 3,136 lights."

Despite these elaborate structures, it was the Victorian age in England that ushered in the golden era of the greenhouse. British architects brought the construction of green-houses, called conservatories or glasshouses, to a fine art.

By the mid-nineteenth century, glass was being manufactured in great quantity and the exorbitant taxes on it were eliminated. Soon the wealthy began competing with each other to build the most exquisite greenhouse, primarily to house citrus fruits and rare flowers.

In America, our founding father George Washington had his own version of an orangery constructed at his Mount Vernon home. This was called a pinery, since it was built to grow pineapples, George Washington’s favorite fruit.

In the cities of the nineteenth century there were few green spaces available to the public. The nineteenth-century glasshouse was the reflection of the city-dweller's new love affair with nature. The most fruitful trees of the tropics grew in this open sky paradise. The first public winter garden was Regent's Park, London, England in 1846. The first recreational establishment to include plants was Jardin d'Hiver in Paris in 1848. These glass-and-iron structures, located away from the city center in parks or botanical gardens, provided a perfectly controlled environment and made it possible to capture a strange and exotic world. Glasshouses developed into spacious winter gardens in which people could meet and enjoy themselves. Alongside palm, orchid, fern and water-lily houses, commercially operated winter gardens were developed complete with floras, concert halls, theaters, and restaurants covered with glass-and-iron.

Red Butte Garden is pleased to announce our own Orangery. In the grand tradition of earlier orangeries, the Garden’s Orangery features exotic Mediterranean plants, and blossoming citrus trees. It is also an elegant architectural addition to the Utah landscape and provides the public with a unique year-round indoor space for botanical exhibits, special lectures, programs and elegant events.