Bürglass-Schlösschen
On the street Oberer Bürglaß , opposite the back of the Landestheater in Coburg , stands the classicist building of the Bürglaß-Schlösschen from the 18th century, which was called the Bulgarian-Schlösschen or Augusten-Palais until the 1950s . After his abdication, it served as residence for Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria for 30 years until 1948. Today the castle is used as a registry office .
history
Original building
Before today's castle was built between the street Oberer Bürglaß and the Theaterplatz, there were two houses on the same site that belonged to a larger area (also called Gottsmannshausen), which the Gottsmann family from Neuhaus am Rennweg had acquired in 1572 . In 1611 the land fell to the rulers . Duke Friedrich Wilhelm von Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg sold the house to Captain Georg von Bachstedt in 1652. In 1721 it was acquired by Dietrich von Henniges at Rothenhof. He sold it in 1734 to the widowed Duchess Elisabeth Sophia von Sachsen-Coburg-Meiningen , who sold it to the merchant Friedrich Matthäus Scheler in 1737. In 1757, Hereditary Prince Ernst Friedrich was allowed to use the property as a stately home. In 1794, Prince Friedrich Josias acquired the area and arranged for the two Gottsmannshausen to be completely rebuilt into the small town hall in its current form.
New building
Field Marshal General Prince Friedrich Josias was the youngest son of Duke Franz Josias . Despite many military successes, Friedrich Josias bitterly asked for his dismissal in 1794 after tensions with the Chancellor of Emperor Franz II , in whose service he was. The new castle should serve as his old age. After only ten months of construction, he was able to move into his domicile.
The building in the classicism style, covered by a towering hipped roof , is actually a simple two-story building on a rectangular floor plan. The clever arrangement of both longitudinal fronts by three-storey central projections protruding far into the roof and two attached gables on each side make the palace appear well proportioned. Above the main entrance on the street side, a mighty balcony rests on four pillars , forming an open access hall. In the triangular gable of the central risaliten , Prince Josias had the Latin inscription Per actis laboribus (After work done) added, which was later removed. In the anteroom to the stairwell inside the castle, the unknown architect placed a column-supported roundabout as a surprising stylistic device. Josias had a reception hall set up on the first floor, which is divided by three- dimensional painted pilasters . Two semicircular niches for Empire stoves are crowned by stucco reliefs . The room is visually enhanced by its wall coverings with landscapes and ancient ruins finely painted on canvas .
During his retirement in Coburg, Prince Josias saved the city from looting through skillful negotiations when the French General Augereau had his Napoleonic troops billeted in the city in 1806 . The conversations were held in the reception room of the castle.
After Josias death in 1815, the property returned to the ownership of the ducal house of Saxony-Coburg . From 1816 the Duchess Auguste used the castle as a widow's residence, which led to the name Augusten-Palais . In 1842/43 there were major modifications for Ferdinand von Coburg-Koháry , from the Catholic line of the ducal house, for use as a Coburg apartment. The brother Prince August von Coburg-Koháry and his wife Clementine von Orleans eventually used the palace at times.
In the meantime, the court theater was built in the immediate vicinity in 1840 , the construction of which cost the sizable front garden several meters. In 1902, Prince Philipp acquired the Augusten-Palais, where he lived his last years and died in 1921. His nephew Prince Cyrill became the new owner before his father Ferdinand , Tsar of Bulgaria until 1918, who had previously lived in the Tsar's villa in the courtyard garden , took over the castle. In the Coburg population, this quickly received the name Bulgarian Castle . Ferdinand von Coburg-Kohary lived here until his death in 1948. Only then did the name Bürglaß-Schlösschen become established .
Josias garden
A wide door in the central projection of the back of the Bürglaß-Schlösschen leads over a few steps into the park-like garden that Prince Josias had laid out when he was rebuilding his palace. Since the Court Theater, the Palace Square and the Theater Square did not yet exist, the garden extended to Ehrenburg Palace and, on the street side, to the Upper Burglass, which at that time still ran straight ahead towards the palace . It was laid out as a landscape park with winding paths, fountains and lines of sight and was surrounded by a fence. The fish market took place regularly on its western flank. The Josias Garden , as the park was called after the death of the popular prince and is still called today, lost more than three times as a result of the layout of the palace square in 1819 and the later construction of the court theater and the new street that leads around the theater Quarter of its area. After being downsized, it was initially surrounded by a wall plinth with an attached fence that separated it from the new theater square. A garden gate flanked by two lions' heads allowed passage to the theater square . In 1911 grateful citizens put a larger than life monument to Prince Josias in his garden. He proudly points at his lock with an outstretched arm, dressed in the uniform of an Austro- Hungarian General Field Marshal. Duke Carl Eduard , Crown Prince Boris of Bulgaria and the Belgian Count de Mérode were present at the unveiling of the monument . Today the monument stands at the transition between the theater square and the Josias garden.
During the Second World War , the artistically forged fence, like many other fences in Coburg, was dismantled because the metal was needed for the armaments industry . After 1948, apart from a few remains, the base of the wall and the now useless garden gate were removed. The lion heads now adorn the garden entrance to the palace. In the street-facing part of the garden there was a large bowl fountain in front of the main entrance until 1840, the central pillar of which was made of sandstone and moved to the rear part of the garden, where it still stands today.
Todays use
After 1948, the castle, which has belonged to the city since 1919, was initially used as a set and prop store for the neighboring State Theater. At the beginning of the 1960s, the city decided to renovate the building in accordance with a listed building and to stylishly accommodate the registry office . The reception room of Prince Josias has served as a wedding room since then , while offices and the archive are housed in the other rooms. Coburg's largest beer garden was set up in Josias-Garten in the 1990s , much to the chagrin of some of the residents who have tried in vain to stop operations because of the noisy background every evening.
literature
- Dr. Fritz Mahnke: Palaces and castles around the Franconian Crown , printing and publishing company Neue Presse GmbH, Coburg, 1974, pp. 14-15
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Helmut Wolter: The house book of the city of Coburg 1400-1945, Volume 8: Bürglaß I Zwei Schlösslein , Dr. Peter Morsbach Verlag, Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-937527-38-3 , pp. 9-24
- ↑ Helmut Wolter: The house book of the city of Coburg 1400-1945, Volume 8: Bürglaß I Zwei Schlösslein , Dr. Peter Morsbach Verlag, Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-937527-38-3 , p. 27
- ↑ Hans-Joachim Böttcher: Ferdinand von Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha 1861-1948 - A cosmopolitan on the Bulgarian throne . East European Center Berlin-Verlag, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-89998-296-1 , p. 343 ff .
Coordinates: 50 ° 15 ′ 37 ″ N , 10 ° 58 ′ 0 ″ E