Old Bayreuth Palace

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Old castle with main courtyard : on the left the monument to Maximilian II , on the right the passage to the inner courtyard and the castle church (2013)

The Old Palace in Bayreuth was built in 1455 and was the residence of the Margraves of Brandenburg-Bayreuth from 1603 to 1753, before moving to the New Palace in the middle of the 18th century . Today the building on Maximilianstrasse is part of the historic city center of Bayreuth and has served as the headquarters of the tax office since 1953 . The building is not to be confused with the Old Palace in the Bayreuth Hermitage .

history

Old castle with the margrave fountain in the courtyard, early 18th century
West and north wings around 1910
Outer courtyard (court of honor) with Maximilian monument at the former location of the margrave fountain, behind it the passage to the inner courtyard, around 1910

As early as the 13th century or earlier, there is said to have been an official residence on the site. Presumably, the property was only built after a market square and town houses were already in place. From there, the Margraves of Brandenburg-Kulmbach (with the Plassenburg residence ) managed their business on a visit to the city. The fortified structure, which is located in a favorable position, could also have played a role in the foundation or relocation of the settlement. In the 17th century, contemporary sources spoke of the "Burg" Bayreuth.

Margrave Christian (1603–1655) moved his residence from Kulmbach to Bayreuth in the palace at the beginning of his reign . After a city fire in 1621, the lordship was able to buy up several adjacent houses. After 1600, court architect Michel Mebart built the stables and the ground floor complex of the electoral building as well as the east and north wings around the old courtyard (today's inner courtyard). Elias Gedeler later led the work, during which the wings around the inner courtyard were raised to a three-story structure. From 1691, all courtyard facades were standardized by facing the arcades and pilasters according to the design by Charles Philippe Dieussart , completed by Leonhard Dientzenhofer . At the end of the 17th century, the building consisted of a four-wing complex that enclosed today's inner courtyard. Of these components, only the octagonal tower, which was built by Caspar Vischer from 1565, remains .

Margrave Christian Ernst (1644–1712, Margrave from 1655) had the master builder Leonhard Dientzenhofer expand the building to include the palace courtyard, in particular with a further north and west wing. The six town houses in the front row have been gradually bought up and demolished by the margraves since the town fire of 1621, which opened the courtyard to the market.

A consequence of this construction measure dates from the second half of the 17th century , the uniform facade shape in the colors white, red and yellow ocher. In the great hall, Christian Ernst had a theater built in, where German and Italian operas and comedies by Molière were performed. From 1668 he had a chapel built in the old east wing. The two wings facing the city (south wing and south east wing) were added by Paul Decker under Christian Ernst's successor Georg Wilhelm .

From 1697 to 1702 the old castle was rebuilt in the Italian style. In the years 1699 to 1705 the court sculptor Elias Räntz created the margrave fountain with which Christian Ernst had a memorial for his participation in the liberation of Vienna from the siege by the Turks . The fountain stood in the outer courtyard (courtyard of honor) of the old castle until 1748 and in that year it was moved to the riding arena, a free space west of the courtyard garden in front of the city gates.

A fire destroyed the residence in January 1753, whereupon on behalf of Friedrich III. (Margrave 1735–1763) and his wife Wilhelmine, the New Palace with attached courtyard garden was built in Ludwigstrasse. With the reconstruction, the Bayreuth Castle Church was built in the immediate vicinity to the east, where the castle chapel had previously been. The margravial burial place is also located here .

The old north wing, expanded by Jakob Frauler between 1594 and 1599 and uniformly provided with Renaissance gables, and the two-storey grand portal created by Elias Räntz and Paul Decker were not restored after the fire. Today the Gontard House and the Palais d'Adhémar are located there, both buildings were built by Carl von Gontard between 1759 and 1761 .

The reconstruction dragged on until the 1860s. On June 30, 1860, the statue of the Bavarian King Maximilian II was unveiled in the courtyard . The old castle subsequently served as the headquarters of various authorities such as the main customs office, the chancellery library, the gendarmerie, the measurement office and the road and river construction office. After the principality of Bayreuth was sold to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1810, the south wing housed the corner to the Schloßberglein the royal district court with the jury court and the public prosecutor's office . During the National Socialist era , the building temporarily housed the NSDAP local branch . During an air raid on April 11, 1945, the central building of the old castle caught fire, with the roof structure and the top floor burning out. When the American soldiers moved in on April 14, the SS burned incriminating documents in the measurement office. The fire spread to the entire building and the houses adjoining it to the west. The west and north wings of the old castle were destroyed except for the outer walls, the wing between the courtyards was badly damaged.

The reconstruction was carried out from 1950 to 1954, the topping-out ceremony was celebrated in October 1952. The western part was completed in 1953 (reference by the local tax office), the eastern part a year later. The premises on the second floor were used by the Agriculture Office (until November 1974) and the Auditing Office (until September 1975). Since October 1975 only the tax office has had its seat in the castle.

  • West wing

  • Monument to Maximilian II in the main courtyard

  • Passage from the main courtyard to the inner courtyard with the castle church

  • Castle tower, since 1960 bell tower of the castle church

  • South Wing and castle tower of the town church seen from

Castle tower

The route of the castle tower runs in a spiral around the spiral staircase in its core

What is unique about the octagonal castle tower is that a stepless road for freight traffic winds around the spiral staircase for pedestrians in the tower core. Its main purpose was to serve as a high gun platform for the defense of the city and castle.

In 1960 the castle tower became the bell tower of the castle church. The golden cross on the top of the tower dates from 1964. The Catholic parish priest had it erected at the end of May of that year, bypassing the city council and against its objections.

Events

"Winter Village" in the courtyard of the old castle, 2014

In the summer months, the courtyard is occasionally used as a location for open-air events . In 2008 the artist group Silixen AG used it for their project "Parallelaktion", in this context the light installation Fire Salamander Glowworms by the artist Roland Schön was shown there. From October to Christmas , the gastronomic location “Bayreuth Winterdorf” is in the courtyard.

As a sign of the city's solidarity with the Bundeswehr , the first swearing-in of recruits of the Air Force training battalion, which had been relocated from Roth to Bayreuth, took place in the courtyard in September 1994 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Altes Schloss Bayreuth  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Bayreuth - Old Castle. www.markgrafenkultur.de, 2018, accessed on March 28, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b c Bayreuth tax office: history. www.finanzamt.bayern.de, June 9, 2017, accessed on March 28, 2018 .
  3. ^ Rainer Trübsbach : History of the City of Bayreuth , p. 30.
  4. ↑ Karl Müssel: Bayreuth in eight centuries . 1st edition. Gondrom, Bindlach 1993, ISBN 3-8112-0809-8 , p. 28 .
  5. ↑ a b c Rainer Trübsbach: History of the City of Bayreuth , p. 97.
  6. ↑ Bernd Mayer : Mysterious Bayreuth . 1st edition. Wartberg Verlag , Gudensberg-Gleichen 2003, ISBN 3-8313-1297-4 , p. 4 .
  7. ^ Rainer Trübsbach: History of the City of Bayreuth , p. 31.
  8. ↑ a b The Margrave Fountain at the New Palace at markgrafenkultur.de, accessed on July 6, 2019
  9. ↑ Eva-Maria Bast , Heike Thissen: Bayreuth Secrets . 1st edition. Bast Medien Service, Überlingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-9816796-1-8 , p. 151 .
  10. ↑ a b Rainer Trübsbach: History of the City of Bayreuth , p. 98.
  11. ↑ Bernd Mayer: Bayreuth as it was. Flash lights from the city's history 1850–1950 . 2nd Edition. Gondrom, Bayreuth 1981, p. 24 .
  12. ↑ Kurt Herterich : Through southwest Bayreuth . 1st edition. Ellwanger, Bayreuth 2001, ISBN 3-925361-39-1 , p. 19th f .
  13. ↑ Karl Müssel: Bayreuth in eight centuries , S. 212 f.
  14. ↑ Bernd Mayer : Bayreuth April 1945 . 1st edition. Wartberg Verlag, Gudensberg-Gleichen 2004, ISBN 3-8313-1463-2 , p. 40 .
  15. ↑ Kurt Herterich: In the heart of Bayreuth . Ellwanger, Bayreuth 2005, ISBN 978-3-925361-51-7 , pp. 48 .
  16. ↑ Bernd Mayer: Bayreuth in the twentieth century , p. 96.
  17. ↑ Eva-Maria Bast, Heike Thissen: Bayreuth Secrets , p. 21 ff.
  18. ↑ To something new: Classical music for free and outside. www.bayreuth.de, June 23, 2016, accessed on March 28, 2018 .
  19. ↑ Parallel action at silixenag.de, accessed on September 26, 2019
  20. ↑ Fire salamander glow worms at silixenag.de, accessed on September 26, 2019
  21. ↑ Welcome to the Bayreuth winter village. www.bayreuther-winterdorf.de, 2018, accessed on March 28, 2018 .
  22. ↑ That's how it used to be. Swearing in on the court of honor in: Nordbayerischer Kurier from September 19, 2019, p. 10.

Coordinates: 49 ° 56 ′ 39.3 "  N , 11 ° 34 ′ 35.7"  E