House to the castle garden
The Haus zum Schlossgarten is a classicist building in Aarau , Switzerland . It stands east of the old town on the Laurenzenvorstadt , in the immediate vicinity of the Schlössli (hence the name). In 1798 it was the seat of the government of the Helvetic Republic for a few months . Today it houses the Forum Schlossplatz, which deals with contemporary cultural and social issues.
history
The building was built in 1777 as a one-story pavilion with a small French garden . In 1792 the dragoon major Daniel Pfleger had it converted into a three-story house. This gave the building its present form. In May 1798 the city authorities bought the house for 18,000 guilders . Aarau had been declared the capital of the Helvetic Republic (and thus the first capital of Switzerland at all) by the French occupying forces two months earlier. The city made the house available to the board of directors of the new centralized state as the seat of government. However, only four months later, in September 1798, the government and parliament moved to Lucerne .
In 1803 the city administration was temporarily housed here until it moved to Pelzgasse 19 (today's Zunftstube ) in 1804 . In the same year the city sold the Haus zum Schlossgarten to private individuals. It then served as a residential building for almost two centuries. In 1994, the local community of Aarau acquired the house and had it completely restored. Since then, it has housed the cultural institution Forum Schlossplatz on the ground floor . This organizes changing exhibitions that deal with contemporary art. While the rooms on the first floor are used for representation purposes, the top floor is still used as an apartment.
building
The house is set back in a garden. During the renovation, the three-axis pavilion was integrated into the seven-axis, three-story residential building as part of the central projection. The arched shape of the windows was retained . The central projection is crowned by a striking triangular gable and pierces the eaves of the mansard roof . The pilasters are varied, as their column order and height change on each floor and they are also structured with cornices , capitals and plinths. The lattice of the wrought-iron portal on the edge of the garden comes from the “Löwen” inn, built in 1739 on the Vorderen Vorstadt , which was expanded into a government building eight decades later . A Louis-Seize-style fountain dates from 1792.
literature
- Michael Stettler: The art monuments of the canton of Aargau . Ed .: Society for Swiss Art History . Volume I, districts of Aarau, Kulm, Zofingen. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 1948, p. 119-120 .