Click to see full image at Belga

The Royal Palace of Laeken was nominated third in a list of ugliest buildings of Belgium. Groep Jan Stallaert, a building/demolishing company, organised the contest in which people could nominate the ugliest buildings in Belgium. The group would then offer to demolish the winner for free.

The Royal Palace of Laeken came out third in the list. However, the first two nominees are suspected of cheating, so it is still possible the Palace ends up first. The company, however, does realize it is highly unlikely they will be allowed to tear it down.

Check this thread for more info on the Royal domain in Laeken and all buildings there.
Check this article in Dutch for more info about the contest.

LadyLeana Belgian Royals Palaces, Royal Palace of Laeken

In 2005, the renovations of the Palace of Oscarshall started. In autumn 2006 it was closed for the public. The palace will be reopened for visitors on august 26th. The King and Queen of Norway already attended the official opening of the castle on August 20th.

Click at the image to see it at kongehuset.no

The Palace of Oscarshall is situated on the peninsula of Bygdø, in Oslo. The palace is built on a rise, with a garden sloping down to the Oslo Fjord.

A picture gallery can be found at Side2

The palace was built from 1847 to 1852 by King Oscar I. In 1863 the castle was sold to the state and became the disposal of the reigning monarch ever since. In 1881 the palace was opened to the public by King Oscar II.

The palace consists of a three-story main building, a park running down to the sea, with fountains, an open, six-sided pavilion, a caretaker’s lodge, a separate building for the kitchens and a service lodge down by the water.

You can find out more about Oscarshall here. A thread at TRF can be found here. You can find many pictures of the interiors of the castle on this site.

Her_Majesty Norwegian Royals Harald V, Palace of Oscarshall, Palaces, Queen Sonja, Renovations

 The future home of Crown Prince Frederik, Crown Princess Mary and their two children will be open to the public next year, so the public can view the recent renovations which have been taking place since 2004.

Click to see the image at ses.dk

Frederik VIII’s Palace, formerly Brockdorf’s Manor, in Amalienborg will be open to the public from February 28 to May 30. The Palaces and Properties Agency announced the news earlier this week, with BT reporting that not all the rooms will be open. The private rooms of the family will not be available for viewing, only the areas which will be used in the future for public engagements.

Various exterior and interior renovations have had to be undertaken before the family could move in, as the Palace was in serious disrepair at the turn of the new millenium. The last occupant of the Palace was the late Queen Ingrid, who lived in the Palace until her November 2000 death. She and her husband, the late King Frederik IX, moved into the Palace in 1935-36, which was when the last renovations took place. Read more…

JessRulz Danish Royals Frederik VIII's Palace (Amalienborg), Palaces, Prince Frederik, Princess Mary, Renovations, Residences

Click on image to see photo at PPE

 On saturday morning princess Margriet did not have to travel far to her first official activity: she visited the neighbouring palace Het Loo in Apeldoorn. Here the princess attended the opening of the new terrace and the restaured ‘historical viewpoint’ in the garden of the palace. The opening also marked the 25th anniversary of palace Het Loo as a museum. Princess Margriet, her husband Pieter van Vollenhoven and their sons were the last royals to live in the palace. When it was decided the palace would be a museum the princess and her family moved to a modern bungalow on the royal domains.

In 2003 the remains of the terraces and waterpipes were found and now in 2009 the garden is exactly in the original state, as it was in the times of stadholder Willem III and his wife princess Mary. The restauration took almost six months to complete.

In the evening princess Margriet visited Arnhem where she attended a performance ‘End of Season’ by ‘Introdans’, a modern dancegroup. With this performance the group ended this years season.  HRH is a patron of the dance group.

Click here to visit the website of the palace.

Marengo Dutch Royals Het Loo Palace, Palaces, Patronage, Princess Margriet

Click on image to see picture at wikipedia

 As mayor Job Cohen announced last weekend, when the royal palace on Dam square in Amsterdam was reopened, the exterior of the palace will be cleaned extensively. Newspaper NRC Handelsblad reports that this morning the city showed a concept decision, in which they approve of the cleaning. Only three years ago they were against it as they were afraid that the stones would be damaged during the cleaning.

The Service for national buildings (Rijksgebouwendienst) estimates that the cleaning will cost 40 million Euros. The cleaning will start with steam, after that they will laser it and when needed they will retouch them. It is still unclear how they will retouch the stones, one option is by spraying it with mineral paint. Some stones will even be replaced.

The result will be that the palace will have a lighter color, more closely resembling how it looked before 400 years of polution damaged the stones. Critics however say that the cleaning is useless, agressive, damaging and historically incorrect. People can still object against the plans by filing a complaint, which is possible for six weeks.

Marengo Dutch Royals Palaces, Renovations, Royal Palace (Amsterdam)

Click on image to see photo at telegraaf.nl

Click on image to see photo at telegraaf.nl

 Yesterday queen Beatrix reopened the royal palace on Dam square in Amsterdam. The palace was closed for 3,5 years as the interior was adapted. The palace, that was originally built as a city hall in 1648, got new kitchens and bathrooms, furniture was restaured, 45.000 kilo of asbestos was removed and the chandeliers that were found on the attic were restaured and used in several rooms of the palace.  The leader of the project was happy to announce that he stayed within the budget of 81 million euros. However, the main hall of the palace, the impressive Citizen’s Hall, was not restaured due to lack of money. ‘It is like restauring Versailles and leaving out the Hall of Mirrors’, commented renovation architect Krijn van den Ende in newspaper ‘De Telegraaf’. Still, the result of the restauration is impressive, the use of old chandeliers, new curtains, carpets and furniture makes the palace actually looking like a palace. During the last renovation in the 60-ties many of these things were removed as they wanted the palace to resemble the original 17th century style as much as possible. As a result the palace looked like a cold and empty city hall instead of a palace, as which it is functioning since 1808.

Click on image to see photo at telegraaf.nl

Click on image to see photo at nrc.nl

Mayor Job Cohen of Amsterdam held a speech during the opening, for an audience of 400 guests, mostly people involved with the project but also to queen Beatrix and her sister princess Margriet. ‘Welcome home, your majesty’, the mayor started his speech. He also told the audience that ‘there will always be critics who think that things should have been done differently. The media quickly calls critics ‘experts’, but they are selling a lot of nonsense’. The mayor also said that more information about the exterior of the palace will be announced soon. It is hoped that the exterior will be cleaned, as the sand coloured stones turned black and grey over the years. The royal palace in Amsterdam is opened to the public for six months a year. The opening hours can be found on their official website, click here.

Marengo Dutch Royals Palaces, Princess Margriet, Queen Beatrix, Renovations, Royal Palace (Amsterdam)

Click on image to see picture at wikipedia

Click on image to see picture at wikipedia

 On June 13th, queen Beatrix will officially open the renovated royal palace on Dam square, in Amsterdam. A day later the public is already allowed to take a look. That was announced by the ministairy of general affairs today.

The palace underwent an extensive renovation that lasted for 3,5 years. The interior has been modernized where needed (in the kitchen for example), while other parts have been carefully restaured to old splendor.

The palace has been built in the 17th century and originally was used as a city hall. King Louis Napoleon however changed the function of the city hall and turned it into a palace. He was the only king who ever lived in the palace. The kings from the house of Orange-Nassau mainly used it for representational purposes.

The palace will display a presention of the restauration, so visitors can see for themselves what happened the last 3,5 years. The palace also has the largest collection of empire furniture that can be found outside France, but newer pieces of furniture, from the reigns of king Willem I and king Willem II are used now too.

Marengo Dutch Royals Palaces, Queen Beatrix, Renovations, Royal Palace (Amsterdam)

 It was announced today by the Royal Court that Crown Princess Victoria and her fiancé, Daniel Westling, will settle and raise their future family in the Haga Palace.

The Swedish Government, which previously had the right to use the Palace, made the decision today to return the Palace to King Carl XVI Gustaf for his personal use. The King in turn offered use of the Palace to his eldest daughter, who accepted the generous offer.

No date has been decided for when the pair will move into the Palace.

Haga Palace was built in the early 1800s, commissioned by King Gustav IV Adolf for the use of his family. It was here that the current King, his parents and four elder sisters lived until Prince Gustav Adolf’s untimely death in 1947. Rights to use the Palace were transferred to the Swedish Government in 1966 by King Gustav VI Adolf. Haga Palace lies in the grounds of Haga Park, in the municipality of Solna.

JessRulz Swedish Royals Daniel Westling, Haga Palace, Palaces, Princess Victoria, Residences

Dr. David Starkey says that we can learn much about the life of Henry VIII by visiting his residences, the most well-known of which is Hampton Court.

Click the image to see the gallery at The Daily Telegraph

Dr. Starkey is amazed by the Tudor royal’s “prodigious accumulation.” He is describing a neglected aspect of Henry’s reign: the number of houses and palaces he owned. When Henry became king in 1509, he had a mere 12 or 13 palaces and castles . In the end he had 55, and Starkey describes him as “the most ‘overhoused’ monarch.”

For all that Henry may have been the William Randolph Hearst of his age, most of his residences are located in the southeastern section of England. Henry only travelled to other parts of England twice.

Starkey advises travellers to begin at Greenwich, Henry’s birthplace, and preferably they should arrive by water. The River Thames was “the great highway of Tudor London”, and a water voyage would imitate those taken by the Tudor greats. The actual palace Henry knew (it was then called Placentia or Pleasure) was torn down in the 1600s, but the park and tree line would be recognizable to the king.

Much of Henry’s childhood was spent nearby at Eltham. This palace is also torn down but its Great Hall remains. This is the spot, Starkey says, “where Henry was introduced by Thomas More to Erasmus. It was like a David Frost Show of 1499.”

Henry was not quite eighteen years old when he was proclaimed king on April 24 1509. That was the day on which he moved into the Tower of London, then palace, prison and armory. The Tower is currently showing the exhibition “Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill,” with Tudor weapons and Henry’s ever-increasing suits of armor. Read more…

iowabelle British Royals, Historical Royals David Starkey, Hampton Court Palace, Henry VIII, Palaces

  The Duch Government Information Office (RVD) denied on the website of the royal family the rumours that Huis ten Bosch Palace in The Hague will be extended to house Jorge and Carmen Zorreguieta, parents of princess Máxima.

Click on image to see photo at www.minbuza.nl

Two weeks ago it became clear that the royal family had asked the city counsil of The Hague for permission to change the destination plan of the estate of Huis ten Bosch Palace, so that three extra guest houses could be built. The RVD stresses that there are no concrete plans to build anything though. Last week gossip magazine Prive claimed that one of the guest houses would be built for the parents of princess Máxima, and that they will move inthere as soon as Queen Beatrix has abdicated and Willem-Alexander and his family moves into the palace. The city counsil of The Hague will decide on 26 March if the royal family can change the destination plan of the palace grounds.

Marengo Dutch Royals Huis ten Bosch Palace, In-Laws, Palaces, Princess Máxima