The 25 Coolest Palaces

Image via Complex Original

25. Hampton Court Palace

Year Built: 1514

Location: London, England

Architect: Built under Henry VIII

Hampton Court Palace was famously the home to King Henry VIII and his many wives. Its kitchens boast an almost 50-room complex—yes, 50 rooms dedicated to cooking, grilling, stewing, baking, and anything you can imagine—and for each fireplace, which was quite the extravagant thing to have back in Tudor England, one can find an ornate, red-brick chimney boasting of its presence within the palace walls.

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24. Festetics Palace

Year Built: 1745

Location: Keszthely, Zala county, Hungary

Architect: Kristóf Festetics

Festetics Palace shows what happens when French sensibility interacts with the favored local aesthetic. Mansart roofs over neoclassical facades terminate in undulating domes that reach upwards in spires. Small turrets find completion in onion domes, and the structure seems to, like Versailles, go on and on forever.

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23. Amba Vilas Palace

Year Built: 1912

Location: Mysore, India

Architect: Henry Irwin

The palace at Mysore knows how to excite the eye. From the enlarged collonade whose arches wiggle and leap from one column to the next, to the end pavilions with intricate fenestration that end in scarlet onion domes, you never get tired of looking at this grand home.

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22. Tokyo Imperial Palace

Year Built: 1869

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Architect: Unknown

Although largely cut off from the public's eye, what we can see of the Imperial Palace of Tokyo is a lesson in the ideal Japanese aesthetic. Ivory white keeps with jade green roofs are perched atop stone bases, which tower over trees in order to provide the best vantage point to protect the palace within. Decorative and functional? That's hard to beat.

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21. Frederiksborg Palace

Year Built: 1560

Location: Hillerød, Denmark

Architect: Frederick II

Frederiksborg Palace is one of those places that will have you second guessing whether or not it's real because of how perfect it is. A subtly striped facade, pinned to the ground with four turrets that end in domed spires sits upon a grassy peninsula on a body of water so calm that its image is perfectly reflected back upon the palace.

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20. Potala Palace

Year Built: 1645

Location: Lhasa, Tibet, China

Architect: Founded by Songtsen Gampo

Potala Palace seems to grow out of the rock on which it is built. The geometric construction, with its flat roofs, gives the appearance of a fortress, while its white base helps to blur the area where the rock ends and the structure begins.

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19. Rashtrapati Bhavan

Year Built: 1929

Location: New Delhi, India

Architect: Edwin Lutyens

Lutyens designed the Viceroy House, or Rashtrapati Bhavan, taking its ambient culture into consideration. The distinctive dome was modeled after the great Stupa of Sanchi, a place of worship for Buddhists. Although bare of ostentatious decoration, the official home of the President of India firmly acknowledges its surroundings.

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18. Drottningholm Palace

Year Built: Late 16th century

Location: Drottningholm, Sweden

Architect: Nicodemus Tessin, the Elder and Younger

Drottningholm Palace wins us over with its picturesque qualities. It may not be as large or heavily decorated as some of the other palaces on this list, but it is thoughtfully laid out in conjunction with its gardens. The situation of the palace, balanced with the sophisticated color palette of slate blue and cream, ensures it a spot on our list.

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17. Palace of Fontainebleau

Year Built: 1540

Location: Fontainebleau, France

Architect: Gilles le Breton

The Palace of Fontainebleau is an astonishing structure, and represents the work of many French kings. Perhaps the earliest home to the French monarchy, the rooms of this palace are where royal fantasies come to life, with rooms dripping in gold filigree and large windows letting light pour in.

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16. The Luxembourg Palace

Year Built: 1615

Location: Paris, France

Architect: Salomon de Brosse, Clément Métezeau

Sure, King Louis XIII's mother had a nice house, with mansard roofs, crystal chandeliers, and more gold decorations than one could count, but the real gem of Luxembourg Palace is its gardens. Classical fountains, perfectly manicured topiaries, and winding walkways create the ideal place to stroll about the grounds and admire the architecture of 17th century France.

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15. The Forbidden City

Year Built: 1406

Location: Beijing, China

Architect: Unknown

The seat of the Chinese emperor for a half a millennium, the Forbidden City stuns in its sheer expansiveness. Roofs swoop and peak over red walls to create a mini metropolis that would satisfy any ruler.

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14. The Winter Palace

Year Built: 1730s

Location: St. Petersburg, Russia

Architect: (Changed many times under different rulers)

The Russians needed something fun and colorful to look at in the middle of drab winters, and the Winter Palace is just that. Brightly colored inside and out, the palace adds a jolt of life into the cold, St. Petersburg season for which it's named.

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13. Dolmabahçe Palace

Year Built: 1843

Location: Istanbul, Turkey

Architect: Hacı Said Ağa

The Byzantine obsession with gold takes a palatial form in the Dolmabahçe Palace—every inch of interior shimmers and shines. If it's not gilt, it is painted, or has a chandelier hanging from it.

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12. Prince's Palace of Monaco

Year Built: 1191

Location: Monaco

Architect: A series of architects across many monarchs

The Prince's Palace of Monaco is what we'd expect of the ruling family's seaside residence in one of the wealthiest nations in the world. A sophisticated color palette, calm facade, and sweeping views make for a timelessly elegant home.

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11. Palazzo Farnese

Year Built: 1517

Location: Rome, Italy

Architect: Michelangelo, Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola and Giacomo della Porta

The Palazzo Farnese may be captivating because it owes its existence, in part, to a Papal affair during the Renaissance—but you can't leave out its harmonious, symmetrical facade, and stunning frescoes by Caracci, which envelop you as you walk through its rooms.

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10. Charlottenburg Palace

Year Built: 1699

Location: Berlin, Germany

Architect: Johann Arnold Nering

Charlottenburg Palace packs an architectural punch at its entrance. The building is quiet and symmetrical for the most part. Then, banishing any hints of adding "expected" to the list of its characteristics, it presents us with a whopping copper dome, green with age, whose windows provide texture and whimsy to the palace facade.

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9. Amalienborg Palace

Year Built: 1760

Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Architect: Nicolai Eigtved

Amalienborg Palace is for those of you who love symmetry. Calling it a single palace is a little misleading, as it is really four winter palaces for four different kings of Denmark. Quite the royal set up, if you ask us. 

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8. Buckingham Palace

Year Built: 1703

Location: London, England

Architect: John Nash, Edward Blore, Aston Webb

No list of beautiful palaces would be complete without Buckingham Palace. It has everything we're looking for in a palatial residence—more rooms than we can count, gold moldings on the wall, work by the finest architects of its time, and oh yeah, the Queen of England.

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7. Catherine Palace

Year Built: 1756

Location: Tsarskoye Selo, Russia

Architect: Bartolomeo Rastrelli

The Catherine Palace comes out of the Rococo sensibility, one of soft color and excessive ornamentation. It takes a pretty particular building to pull off a blue, white, and gold exterior, complete with interiors that resemble desserts more than architecture. This building succeeds.

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6. Palace of Caserta

Year Built: 1780

Location: Caserta, Italy

Architect: Luigi Vanvitelli

This Italian palace marries the Italian palazzo sensibility and more general European styles. Frescoes cover the ceilings of luxurious banquet halls and marble-lined steps ascend beneath soaring vaulted spaces. We're not in an urban Renaissance palazzo, but we're also not at Buckingham Palace, either.

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5. Blenheim Palace

Year Built: 1722

Location: Woodstock, Oxfordshire, UK

Architect: Sir John Vanbrugh, Nicholas Hawksmoor

Blenheim Palace, the home of the 11th Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, was originally built as a gift to the first duke to commemorate a military victory. The neoclassical stone facade of the estate gives way to light and spacious interiors. It is also the birthplace of Winston Churchill.

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4. Doge's Palace

Year Built: Early 15th century

Location: Venice, Italy

Architect: Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bon

No list of palaces would be complete without the Doge's Palace of Venice. Venetian gothic is one of those incredibly localized architectural styles that couldn't be any more distinctive. The facade appears to almost wear a carnival mask with its decorations of pattern and carvings, which curl onto itself in a way that draws excitement and intrigue out of the viewer.

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3. Château de Chambord

Year Built: 1547

Location: Chambord, Loir-et-Cher, France

Architect: Built under King François I

The Château de Chambord is of the fairytale class. By that, we mean it's one of those homes which is so idyllic that it looks like it was only meant for a cartoon Disney movie of the 1950s. You only need to look at how the lively roofline interacts with the calm curves of the structure to see what we mean.

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2. Alhambra

Year Built: 10th century

Location: Granada, Andalusia, Spain

Architect: Built under Sultans Yusuf I and Muhammed V,

We are fond of the Moorish sensibility, and Alhambra takes it to a new level. Every inch of the structure is dapped with decoration. No stone is left uncarved in this Moorish mecca.

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1. The Palace of Versailles

Year Built: 1678

Location: Versailles, France

Architect: Jules Hardouin-Mansart

The Palace of Versailles overwhelms you with its extravagance—and that's exactly what it was mean to do. No inch of the place is left unadorned with gold, mirrors, or carved stone. It is a work meant to reflect man's power over nature.

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