Hermitage (Bayreuth)

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New Palace of the Hermitage: Temple of the Sun and arcade tracts, in front of it the "Upper Grotto" water basin

The Hermitage in Bayreuth is a historic park with water features and buildings that was created from 1715 and is one of the city's attractions. There you will also find the so-called Old Castle , the New Castle ( orangery with the Sun Temple) and other smaller buildings. It is divided into a landscape park , a geometrically laid out baroque garden and an area overgrown to the forest. The Hermitage is officially part of the independent city of Bayreuth.

The landscape park is a rococo gem and a prime example of the horticultural culture of the 18th century. It is variedly designed with a grotto , artificial ruins in the form of a ruin theater (1743), an ancient tomb, the hermitage for the margrave Friedrich III. and a lost hermitage for Margravine Wilhelmine and a number of fountains . In anticipation of the romantic parks , many hidden corners and constantly changing perspectives and insights were created.

The garden is divided into geometrical areas with bosquettes , avenues and water systems. The whole is semicircular surrounded by thick deciduous forest. Wilhelmine followed baroque ideas by adopting traditional elements (arcades, water features and hedge quarters). The individual parts stand freely next to one another, the axis of symmetry common in the Baroque is missing .

location

The 52 hectare park is located on a hill on the eastern edge of the Bayreuth basin in the immediate vicinity of the Sankt Johannis district . In the east and north it is bordered by the deeply cut valley of the Red Main , to the south the district Eremitenhof connects .

Origin and history

17th century

The Bayreuth margraves came into possession of an extensive forest area near the village of St. Johannis with a total area of ​​almost 50 hectares through purchase in 1616. Since 1664 there was a zoo, a fenced forest area that was reserved for the farm for hunting. Planning for a pleasure house began just one year later.

18th century

The Hermitage under Margrave Georg Wilhelm

Parnassus around 1910

From 1715, under Margrave Georg Wilhelm, a little summer palace (old castle) and other smaller buildings (farm buildings, water tower as storage for the fountain systems ) were built as the center of a courtly hermitage . The plans came from the court architect Elias Räntz . Although the inauguration of the then almost 40 hectare park was celebrated on August 15, 1719, the work lasted until 1722, because material deliveries are still documented from that year.

Monplaisir Castle

In 1718 the so-called Parnassus was laid out, on an artificial rock there were statues of Apollo and the nine muses . Its name should be reminiscent of the mountain of the same name in Greece , which was dedicated to the god Apollo. The inauguration of the Hermitage in 1719 was celebrated with a market for the population and a three-day fair, which from then on was repeated every year as the Hermitage Parish Fair.

In 1720 the private house of the engineer Johann Heinrich Endrich was built. Wilhelmine of Prussia , to whom the name Monplaisir goes back, received it as a present from her father-in-law Georg Friedrich Karl when she moved into Bayreuth in 1732 as the wife of Hereditary Prince Friedrich .

Inner grotto in the old castle

The castle was a four-wing complex with a small inner courtyard. In each of the two side wings there were twelve small rooms for the " hermits " and "hermit ladies". The north wing running across it contained a splendid hall and, to the side, spacious apartments for the margrave and margravine. The “Inner Grotto” was added to the southern part of the castle, a room clad with floss and shells in which water can spray from more than 200 nozzles. To the delight of the court society sitting on balconies in the dry, the hidden puzzle rays shot the unsuspecting ladies among the guests under the hoop skirts .

To the west of the palace, Georg Wilhelm had a hedge labyrinth laid out on an area of ​​about one hectare , which Margravine Wilhelmine had removed again for the construction of the New Palace and the “Upper Grotto” basin. The princess house for Georg Wilhelm's daughter Christiane Sophie Wilhelmine at the time of the inauguration was later "sold for demolition".

The margrave couple and the court played hermit life: during the day, like hermits, they stayed alone in one of the pavilions scattered in the forest . Dinner was taken in the castle. Because of this pseudo-hermit life of the court, the complex was given the name Hermitage. Everything that could have reminded of the splendor of the world was strictly eliminated. The court dress was exchanged for a brown hermit dress, a straw hat, a bottle gourd and a staff made up the remaining hermit jewelry. The hermit's way of life was supposed to complete, one dined with wooden spoons made of brown earthenware. Both sexes were only allowed to enjoy the joys of society at certain hours. The prince gave the signal for this with a bell that was attached to the turret of his hermit house.

  • Old castle

  • Old castle from north perspective

  • Exterior view of the Old Castle (1919-22) from the southern entrance side

  • Old castle from a southeast perspective

  • Old castle from a southwest perspective

  • Old Castle: View over the fountain onto the inner courtyard

Expansion under the margrave couple Friedrich and Wilhelmine

Roman theater (north side)
Water features in the "Obere Grotte" pool in front of the New Palace , around 1910
Amphora at the Upper Grotto

After the death of his father Georg Friedrich Karl, Margrave Friedrich gave the Hermitage to his wife Wilhelmine in 1735 on the occasion of her first birthday after taking office.

This immediately started to expand the small castle by two side wings, the margrave wing and the margravine wing. The architects were initially the court architect Johann Friedrich Grael and after his death in 1740 the building inspector Johann Georg Weiß . A Japanese cabinet, a music room and the Chinese mirror cabinet , in which she wrote her famous memoirs, were set up there. Two of the splendid lacquer panels were a present from their brother, Frederick the Great . Andrea Domenico Cadenazzi , Carlo Daldini Bossi and Giovanni Battista Pedrozzi were involved in the stucco work in these rooms .

The margrave couple acquired almost 10 hectares of land to the south for the Hermitage and created the "canal garden" there. Wilhelmine changed the character of the park and had hedges planted with a total length of 6 km. So - instead of the flower parterres , over which one wanted to see and be seen - she created small, intimate retreats under the open sky, which were perfectly combined with the Rococo lifestyle .

From 1737 the “Lower Grotto” was built by the court architects Johann Friedrich Grael and Joseph Saint-Pierre , later the stone hermitage for the margrave next to it. Saint-Pierre also created the “Roman Thater”, an open-air theater designed as a ruin . Wilhelmine herself appeared there as an actress: at the side of Voltaire , who had accompanied Frederick the Great to Bayreuth in 1743 and embodied the vizier Acomat in the verse tragedy Bajazet by Jean Racine , her role was that of Roxane.

In the years 1749-1753 the former castle was built in the New Castle west (not to be confused with the city center built from 1753 the New Castle ). It consists of two curved, single arcade tracts , which were completed as an orangery in 1751 and which two years later contained the margravial apartments. When it was converted into a residential palace, the eastern wing was widened to accommodate the Margravine's rooms. The “Herrenflügel”, which remained narrower, was not completed until the 1770s under Karl Alexander .

Between the wings there is a central building with a round floor plan, with which they are not connected. Its dome roof carries a gold-plated quadriga , which is steered by a torch-bearing Apollo as a symbol of the sun. This is why the building is usually referred to as the "sun temple". The original quadriga made of plaster of paris and lime by Giovanni Battista Pedrozzi was removed as early as 1758 and replaced by one made of bronzed wood.

At the same time, framed by arcades (so-called treillages, built by the French carpenter Martin Roubo ), the large upper water basin (“Upper Grotto”) with several groups of figures, but without a central figure. The view from the north should be directed directly to the sun temple via the 56 fountains from the sandstone figures. The whole ensemble embodied the four elements . Georg Wilhelm had the Hermitage opened up with an avenue that leads to the Parnassus and then branches off north to the Old Palace. Wilhelmine had a new axis built, which leads from her castle Monplaisir, north past the Upper Grotto.

  • Lower grotto

  • Lower grotto before 1913

  • Arcades of the lower grotto, above the bird house

  • Water features in the lower grotto

  • Lower grotto, in the back left the Margrave's Hermitage

  • “Stone Hermitage” of Margrave Friedrich III. at the lower grotto

The Hermitage under Ansbacher and Prussian rule

Margrave Karl Alexander von Ansbach , who took over the Principality of Bayreuth in 1769, showed little interest in the Hermitage. The cost-intensive maintenance of hedges and arbours was reduced, so that in many places there was wild growth. Part of the park gradually became a forest again. In the years 1771/72 the margrave had an octagonal pagoda , the "Chinese Pavilion", built on the "Schneckenberg" according to a design by Johann Gottlieb Riedel .

In 1790 Karl August von Hardenberg came to Bayreuth as the leading minister of Margrave Karl Alexander. After Karl Alexander's abdication and the handover of the principality to Prussia in 1791, he headed the incorporation of the new province. In the same year, the movable garden inventory, including the statues, was auctioned. The new masters of the Hermitage wanted to “Anglicize” the park, which they called “Schnirkelwerk of French design” and “horticultural Qodlibet ” .

Hardenberg's daughter Lucia , who was fourteen years old in 1793, lived in the east wing of the New Palace for several summers that year. In addition to the Hermitage, she also got to know the courtyard garden and the park of the Fantaisie Palace . She later created the Fürst-Pückler-Park in Bad Muskau and the Branitzer Park with her second husband Hermann von Pückler-Muskau .

19th century

Hermitage plan (extract from the original cadastre from 1852)

At the end of the 18th century, under Prussian rule, the garden was landscaped and partly used for agriculture . In 1810, after four years of French possession, it and the city were sold by Napoleon to the Kingdom of Bavaria . Since Bayreuth was no longer a royal seat , there was no need for such a pleasure garden. Under Bavarian rule, the canal garden and the gardening area were sold in 1811. Presumably in 1819 the quadriga on the sun temple was removed, which remained without a crown for about 90 years.

In 1830, the Bavarian Duke Pius , who spent several summer weeks in the Hermitage, had the hermitage chapel built. Then the facility was only used sporadically, for example, when the Bavarian King Ludwig II lived in the Old Palace on the occasion of his visit to the Richard Wagner Festival in 1876. The original cadastre from 1852 shows that at that time the majority of the geometric designs and the strictly geometric network of paths had already disappeared.

20th and 21st centuries

Eagle instead of the quadriga on the sun temple of the new castle
Sun temple of the New Palace from 1753 with the new Quadriga

In 1907, the state acquired a bronze eagle at the Nuremberg trade fair, which was enthroned on the building from 1908 to April 1945.

From 1933 onwards, in connection with the construction of the Reichsautobahn , the opportunity arose to buy back the previously sold areas. In order to shorten the walk for the expected guests of the Gau capital, an automobile parking lot was created opposite the sun temple. The canal garden was therefore moved south when it was restored. During the Second World War , a model tree nursery was set up in the canal garden , and in 1944 more than 900 fruit trees were planted there.

Shortly before the end of the Second World War , parts of the Reichsfilmarchiv from Berlin were brought to the Hermitage. Soldiers of the Wehrmacht and officers of the department educational film of the Army High Command lodge at one in the Old Palace. 60,000 educational films for training soldiers as well as furniture and pictures from the old castle were stored in the new castle.

On April 14, 1945, the New Castle was in the otherwise largely bloodless taking Bayreuth American troops severely damaged, said stored there nitrocellulose - films led to an explosive incendiary effect. The entire interior was burned, including the old castle and the former stables . American aerial scouts had discovered military vehicles in the immediate vicinity of the buildings. Since General August Hagl, who was in Saint John, refused to peacefully surrender of the city, eight took P-47 - fighter-bomber the Hermitage under attack. From 2 p.m. she was attacked with eight 250-pound explosive bombs , 18 rockets and on-board weapons .

The reconstruction of the New Palace in the 1960s was only done externally, the restoration work stretched over ten years. The interiors were not reconstructed. In May 1969 a Quadriga, a work by the sculptors Richard Stammberger and Bernhard Krauss , was installed on the Sun Temple .

A large part of the previously sold land was bought back and lost parts of the park were rebuilt. Attempts were made to restore the park as it existed at the end of the Margrave period. The cascade on the north slope was restored and, from 1972, the canal garden with the Boskette in the southwest of the facility was restored. In 2003 the Schneckenberg also received an octagonal pagoda ("Chinese Pavilion"), the predecessor of which disappeared around 1812. The Monplaisir Castle, which had served as a school for the children of Sankt Johannis for over 100 years, became the property of the Bavarian Palace Administration in January 1970 .

The old castle has been extensively renovated since 2005. The marble hall, the Chinese mirror cabinet, the Japanese lacquer room and other splendid rooms of the Margravial Wing can now be visited again.

  • Schneckenberg with Chinese pavilion

  • Roman theater (south side) and fountain

  • Newly laid out canal garden

  • Arcade in front of the old castle

Care of the system

The Bavarian Administration of State Palaces, Gardens and Lakes looks after the outdoor facilities and the buildings.

Todays use

Former stables
Midsummer Night Festival

The old castle serves museum purposes and can only be visited as part of a guided tour.

There is a café in the east wing of the orangery. As of the 2014 season, the museum shop will be located in the Old Palace of the Hermitage. The west wing is used for art exhibitions in the summer months. Like the central building, the temple of the sun, it can also be rented for small and medium-sized private celebrations.

In the former stables there is a restaurant and a hotel.

The summer night festival has been taking place in the park regularly since August 1970 . In the past, there were repeated problems with the weather (including cancellation due to the risk of storms) and the associated deficits that are borne by the city.

Since 1982, the Studiobühne Bayreuth has held performances in the Roman Theater in the summer months . Joan Baez performed an open-air concert in July 1995 at the Hermitage.

Water supply

The first water tower is not immediately recognizable as such

Large amounts of water had to be made available for the water features in the Old Castle, in the Lower Grotto and on Mount Parnassus, as well as the cascade and the drinking water supply. The first water tower was therefore built in 1718 and is still in function. It originally got its water from the Pensen ridge east of the Red Main valley. The supply took place in a closed pipe system made of hollowed-out tree trunks based on the culvert principle . Most of it was laid underground, but the valley floor was crossed in a lead pipe over a bridge.

Around 1750, as part of the construction of the Upper Grotto, a second water tower was built. He received the water by means of a piston pumping station from the Red Main, driven with a water wheel over a rod about 200 meters long .

traffic

From the district of Dürschnitz near the city ​​center , Königsallee leads to the Hermitage. Margravine Wilhelmine had the road laid out as the “Königsweg” on the occasion of the upcoming visit of her brother Friedrich II of Prussia . Eremitagestraße begins not far from the Bayreuth-Nord junction of federal motorway 9 and ends on the park grounds.

The city bus lines 302 and 303 go to the Hermitage in the tariff association of the Greater Nuremberg Transport Association . From 1910 to 1973 there was the Hermitage stop on the Weiden – Bayreuth railway line . There is a parking space for mobile homes near the Lohengrin Therme in the Seulbitz district .

reception

The Hermitage Palace is mentioned in Theodor Fontane's novel Effi Briest , when Effi reads about a “white woman” who is said to have appeared there to Napoleon Bonaparte . However, the incident to which Fontane refers took place in the New Palace in downtown Bayreuth .

literature

  • Georg Dehio , Tilmann Breuer: Handbook of German art monuments . Bavaria I: Franconia - The administrative districts of Upper Franconia, Middle Franconia and Lower Franconia. 2nd, revised and supplemented edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-422-03051-4 , pp. 204-211.
  • Verena Friedrich: Castles and palaces in Franconia. 2nd Edition. Elmar Hahn Verlag, Veitshöchheim 2016, ISBN 978-3-928645-17-1 , pp. 92-99.
  • August Gebeßler : City and District of Bayreuth. The Art Monuments of Bavaria , Brief Inventories , VI. Tape. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1959, pp. 35–46.
  • Kai Kellermann: Stately gardens in Franconian Switzerland - a search for traces. Verlag Palm & Enke, Erlangen / Jena 2008, ISBN 978-3-7896-0683-0 , pp. 224-227.
  • Andrea M. Kluxen: The ruins theater of the Wilhelmine of Bayreuth. In: Archive for the history of Upper Franconia. Volume 67, 1987, ISSN  0066-6335 , pp. 187-255.
  • Arno Kröniger : The New Palace of the Hermitage - destroyed and forgotten. A search for the world of Wilhelmine. Akron, Bayreuth 2018, ISBN 978-3-9808215-9-9 .
  • Peter Oluf Krückmann: The Hermitage in Bayreuth - official guide. Bavarian Palace Administration, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-941637-06-1 .
  • Ingo Toussaint (Ed.): Pleasure gardens around Bayreuth. Hermitage, Sanspareil and Fantaisie in descriptions from the 18th and 19th centuries. (= Research on art and cultural history, volume 6). Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim u. a. 1998, ISBN 3-487-08401-5 .

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i hedges to hide . In: Nordbayerischer Kurier , 29./30. June 2019, p. 12.
  2. ↑ Bernd Mayer: Little Bayreuth City History . Pustet, Regensburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-7917-2266-5 , p. 48 .
  3. ↑ a b Stefanie Gensera-Söffing: The castles of the Marquis George William of Brandenburg-Bayreuth ; Verlag CuC Rabenstein, Bayreuth 1992; ISBN 3-928683-05-5
  4. ↑ a b Secret weapon against impermanence . In: Nordbayerischer Kurier , 6./7. July 2019, p. 12.
  5. ↑ a b Herbert Popp: Bayreuth - newly discovered , p. 250.
  6. ↑ a b Herbert Popp: Bayreuth - newly discovered , p. 251.
  7. ↑ a b c d Will von Poswik, Herbert Conrad: Bayreuth . Druckhaus Bayreuth, Bayreuth 1974, p. 12 ff .
  8. ↑ a b c d Wilhelmine 2.0 . In: Nordbayerischer Kurier , 22./23. June 2019, p. 13.
  9. ^ Based on a description by Karl Ludwig von Pöllnitz . In: Ingo Toussaint: Pleasure gardens around Bayreuth .
  10. ↑ A Franconian pleasure palace . In: The Gazebo . Issue 15, 1877, pp. 248-251 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
  11. ↑ Arno Kröniger : The New Palace of the Hermitage - destroyed and forgotten . 1st edition. Akron, Bayreuth 2018, ISBN 978-3-9808215-9-9 , pp. 21 .
  12. ↑ Arno Kröniger: op. Cit. , P. 47.
  13. ↑ Arno Kröniger: op. Cit. , P. 34.
  14. ^ Hermitage Neues Schloss from: Bavarian Administration of State Palaces and Lakes, accessed on May 4, 2019
  15. ↑ Arno Kröniger: op. Cit. , P. 43.
  16. ↑ Christoph Rabenstein , Ronald Werner: St. Georgen Pictures and History (s) . Druckhaus Bayreuth, Bayreuth 1994, ISBN 3-922808-38-7 , p. 92 .
  17. ↑ Christoph Rabenstein, Ronald Werner: St. Georgen Pictures and History (s) . P. 86.
  18. ↑ A life for garden art in: Frankenpost from April 9, 2016, p. 21.
  19. ↑ Karl Müssel: Bayreuth in eight centuries , S. 132 and 139th
  20. ↑ a b c Arno Kröniger: op. Cit. , P. 44.
  21. ↑ a b How the Margravine went to bed . In: Nordbayerischer Kurier , 2./3. March 2019, p. 15.
  22. ^ Werner Meyer: Götterdämmerung - April 1945 in Bayreuth . RS Schulz, Percha am Starnberger See 1975.
  23. ↑ New landmark for Bayreuth . In: Nordbayerischer Kurier , October 24, 2018, p. 10.
  24. ↑ 50 years ago . In: Nordbayerischer Kurier , May 15, 2019, p. 10.
  25. ↑ 50 years ago in: Nordbayerischer Kurier of January 31, 2020, p. 10.
  26. ↑ 50 years ago in: Nordbayerischer Kurier, August 5, 2020, p. 8.
  27. ↑ 25 years ago in: Nordbayerischer Kurier of July 9, 2020, p. 8.
  28. ^ Herbert Popp: Bayreuth - newly discovered , pp. 255–256.
  29. ^ Kurt Herterich: Im eastern Bayreuth , p. 142.
  30. ↑ see also in the magazine Straße und Autobahn , No. 7, July 2017, pages 551–552.
  31. ↑ Wilhelm Rauh, Erich Rappl: Stage Bayreuth . Druckhaus Bayreuth, Bayreuth 1987, ISBN 3-922808-21-2 , p. 37 .

Coordinates: 49 ° 56 ′ 53 "  N , 11 ° 37 ′ 26"  E