Falaise Castle
The Falaise Castle ( French Château Guillaume-le-Conquérant ) is located on a rocky outcrop in the south-west of Falaise in the Calvados department of the Normandy region .
The hilltop castle as you can see it today is the result of three construction phases in which the three residential towers (donjon) were built:
- The first tower was used for both the defense and the rule or residence of the king-duke and his family. The rectangular floor plan is typical of the Anglo-Norman construction method (see Whitetower in London ). The donjon, built around 1120, consists of a large hall for public life (Aula), a chamber (camera) dedicated to private life, and a chapel (capella), all of which were on the first floor and not on the ground floor for defense reasons . There were halls in which the kitchen was set up and in which food supplies and weapons were stored. The builder of this first part of the castle was Heinrich I. Beauclerc , fourth son of William the Conqueror . Since this is the largest of the three residential towers, it is called the grand donjon .
- To increase the living space, a second tower was commissioned by Heinrich II. Plantagenêt . This annex was also laid out in a rectangular manner, but its dimensions are smaller than the grand donjon . It is therefore called petit donjon .
- The third tower was added at the beginning of the 13th century by the French King Philippe Auguste as a result of his military conquests in the Duchy of Normandy . The tower, which is round for better defense, was built according to the plans of the military engineers of the French king. One speaks here of the Talbot Tower .
The castle, which was abandoned in the 17th century, was listed as a historical monument in 1840 . The architect Ruprich Robert, a student of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc , undertook the first restoration work to save the donjons from deterioration. In the encirclement battle of Falaise in 1944 was the medieval system only slightly damaged.
Between 1987 and 1997 the towers were restored by Bruno Decaris, chief architect of the monument protection in Calvados. The modern way of restoring the entrance area of the grand donjon was particularly controversial, as Decaris used steel and reinforced concrete. But the use of such materials also indicates to the visitor that the restoration is topical.
Web links
- Castle website (French, English)
- Falaise Castle on richesheures.net
Falaise Castle as a 3D model in SketchUp's 3D warehouse
Footnotes
- ↑ Charter of Venice , Article 9: “[...] If, for aesthetic or technical reasons, it is necessary to restore something that is not known how it looked, the complementary work will stand out from the existing composition and will bear the stamp of ours Carry time. "
Coordinates: 48 ° 53 ′ 35.5 " N , 0 ° 12 ′ 14" W.