Royal Kurhaus Hotel (Bad Kissingen)

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The Kissinger Kurhaushotel after the expansion by the Bolzanos (1845)
Kurhaushotel (1879), photo: Wilhelm Cronenberg
Kurhaus hotel around 1910/1920
Prince Regent Ludwig III. in front of the hotel entrance (May 15/16, 1913)
Coat of arms of the Kingdom of Bavaria
on the roof of the Steigenberger Hotel
Steigenberger Hotel (2010)
Steigenberger Hotel (2010)

The Königliche Kurhaushotel in Bad Kissingen was built in 1827/1828 according to plans by Heinrich Gries and Donlé in the classicism style as an L-shaped three-storey hipped roof structure, expanded again and again and added one storey in 1927 by the architect Max Littmann . After 182 years of hotel operation , the building was closed as the “Steigenberger Hotel Bad Kissingen” on October 31, 2010 , and the extension was demolished in December 2014. The original building from 1828 is a listed building and should be preserved. The Kurhaushotel stood on the one hand directly on the spa promenade with a view of the spa gardens, on the other hand directly on the foothills of the pedestrian zone. It thus formed the structural "bracket" between the city and the state spa .

prehistory

In 1739, the Würzburg prince-bishop Friedrich Karl von Schönborn-Buchheim commissioned his court builder Balthasar Neumann as sovereign to build "befitting accommodation" for the lords of the Würzburg cathedral chapter and members of the Franconian nobility who came to the up-and-coming spa town of Kissingen for a spa or summer break. The building was expanded several times between 1768 and 1827. In a letter from a stranger in 1811, it is described as follows: “The Kurhaus is directly opposite the Kurplatz. The ground floor contains the caterer's apartment and some rooms for merchants. Above the main building contains a fairly spacious hall, which is intended for the gathering of the spa guests and the dance floor; a wing building on the left but a somewhat smaller dining room and billiard room, and on the right a few rooms for games. Incidentally, this building does not look advantageous from the outside, nor is it well kept inside; elegance is out of the question. "

Kurhaushotel

Perhaps because of this poor impression, the Neumann building was demolished after 90 years and in 1827/1828 the new three-storey hipped roof building on an L-shaped floor plan was built in its place. Johann Wendt wrote about this in 1837: “The new Curhaus, created by the grace of the king, has already developed so far that the whole building plan is clearly visible.” Soon afterwards, the hotel was expanded by the first private bath tenants, the Bolzano brothers, with an extension with 47 rooms.

In the middle of the 19th century the hotel was extended by a representative transverse building to the spa garden - the later main building - and still bore the French name "Hotel Royal de Bain" , which literally means "Royal Bath Hotel " and here specifically means "Royal Kurhaus Hotel" the hotel with the first “Royal Kurhausbad” with 16 bathing cabins and two modern “douche machines” formed a single unit as a Kurhaus. In 1868 Lorenz Schlatter is named as the leaseholder of the Royal Kurhaus and Kurhaushotel. At all times the house and property remained the property of the prince-bishopric and - as its legal successor - the Kingdom of Bavaria , after which the hotel was later named "Royal Kurhaus Hotel" . In 1927 the Kurhaushotel was rebuilt according to plans by Max Littmann and one storey added.

After the Second World War , the building was completely renovated, adapted to the then modern taste and leased to the Steigenberger Hotel Group. This put the hotel into operation on May 20, 1959 as the “Steigenberger Kurhaushotel” and ran it for 51 years, in recent years officially as the “Steigenberger Hotel Bad Kissingen” until it was finally closed on October 31, 2010. The last guests left the hotel two weeks earlier on October 17th.

Over the past few years, the hotel has been classified as a 5-star hotel with 102 rooms and six suites . There was a restaurant , a bar , a pool bar, four conference rooms (80 people), a wellness area , a health center for preventive medicine and plastic surgery as well as a therapy center corresponding to the health resort .

Karl Baedeker described the Kurhaushotel ( Hotel des Bains ) as “elegant and expensive” in his Handbook for Travelers (Volume South Germany and Austria ) in 1873 . On August 30, 1936, Hans Pfundtner , State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of the Interior and responsible co-author of the Nuremberg Laws , complained to the Bavarian Prime Minister Ludwig Siebert that he noticed many Jewish spa guests in Bad Kissingen as a guest at the state spa hotel.

Among the most famous guests of the house of past centuries were the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I with Empress Elisabeth (Sisi) and the Russian Tsar Alexander II with his wife Marija Alexandrovna and children. Even in recent times, the first house on the square has housed many dignitaries such as the Federal Presidents Heinrich Lübke , Karl Carstens , Richard von Weizsäcker , Johannes Rau and Roman Herzog , several times the composer Richard Strauss , industrialists and merchants like Albert Ballin , scientists like Karl Süssheim , Athletes like Franz Beckenbauer , actors like Marlene Dietrich , Curd Jürgens , Inge Meysel , Grit Böttcher , Christiane Hörbiger , Günter Strack , Heinz Drache and Horst Tappert , singers like Rudolf Schock , René Kollo , Freddy Quinn and Karel Gott and, in recent years, everyone Participants in the annual “ Kissinger Sommer ” and “ Kissinger Winterzauber ” festivals .

The reason for the final closure of the house was the need for renewed investments. a. to comply with the new fire protection regulations and to modernize the house in the amount of an estimated 10 million euros.

Further planning

In 2010, the Hamburg project developers RIMC Hotelbetriebsgesellschaft and Mainz Feuring Hotelconsulting GmbH applied for the restart . The concept of the RIMC Hotelbetriebsgesellschaft provided for the renovation of the existing building and the conceptual integration of the Kurhausbad , which was built in 1926/1927 by Max Littmann and is a listed building . Feuring , on the other hand, considered demolishing the former Steigenberger Kurhaushotel and all adjacent buildings with structural redesign of the entire quarter to be the only sensible and economically viable alternative.

At the urging of the city of Bad Kissingen, the order was initially placed with the RIMC Group in the hope of being able to reopen the hotel soon after only a short period of closure. However, the RIMC did not succeed in securing the financing within the set deadline. In 2011, the owner of the Free State of Bavaria decided in favor of the concept of Feuring Hotelconsulting GmbH , which has now developed a concept with the greatest possible preservation of the listed building (the Littmann'sche Kurhausbad and the part of the building once built by Balthasar Neumann) and a cost plan. The Bad Kissingen city council has already approved the concept in principle, although the originally planned budget still needs to be improved. At the beginning of October 2012 it became known that the Free State of Bavaria is making several million euros available to close the funding gap. At the end of November 2012, an amount of nine million euros was committed in this context.

After the failure of the Feuring plans under the conditions set by the Free State, the Bavarian state government decided in mid-December 2013 to demolish the modern extension of the Kurhaushotel, while the original building from 1828, which Littmann added in 1927 and which is under monument protection, will be retained (for the time being). likewise the adjacent office and administration building. The underground car park below is to be renovated and expanded at state expense. The property was tendered for the construction of a four-star hotel by private investors - with or without use of the old building, which is incorrectly referred to as the "Neumann wing. The Littmann'sche Kurhausbad (Prinzregentenstrasse), which is adjacent to the rear, is also listed Free State will be completely renovated and converted into a “Center for Telemedicine .” The state government expects a total investment of 35 million euros (as of December 2013).

literature

  • Fred Kaspar, Michael Schmidt, Birgit Schmalz, Peter Weidisch: The royal lodging house in Bad Kissingen. On the history, use and importance of a unique spa building. (= Special publications of the Bad Kissingen city archive. Volume 10). Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2016, ISBN 978-3-7319-0422-9 .

Web links

Commons : Königliches Kurhaushotel (Bad Kissingen)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Description in the Bavarian Monument List under the number D-6-72-114-407, Am Kurgarten 3
  2. ↑ It was not until 1883 that the Bavarian King Ludwig II gave the health resort the title “Bad”.
  3. ^ Johann Wendt: The healing springs at Kissingen in the Kingdom of Baiern , Breslau 1837
  4. ↑ Description of the hotel in: Julius Bernhard: Travel Guide for the Kingdom of Bavaria and the neighboring states. 1868, p. 169. ( digitized version )
  5. ^ South Germany and Austria. P. 220, from the series of Baedeker's travel guides. Publishing house K. Baedeker, 1873.
  6. ↑ Wolf Gruner, Götz Aly: German Empire 1933-1937. Federal Archives - Institute for Contemporary History (Ed.), 2008, p. 594. ( digitized version )
  7. ^ New perspectives at the Kurhaushotel - “ Main Post ” article from September 15, 2011
  8. ↑ More opportunities for the Kurhaus hotel - “ Main Post ” article from October 5, 2011
  9. ↑ Feuring's concept is favored - “ Main Post ” article from November 22, 2011
  10. ↑ City council unanimously in favor of Feuring concept - " Saale-Zeitung " article from August 6, 2012
  11. ↑ Kurhaushotel: The city does its part. Create legal prerequisites - project developer in the city council - Little new information - " Main Post " article from August 6, 2012
  12. ↑ Significantly more expensive than expected? - " Saale-Zeitung " article from August 7, 2012
  13. ↑ Kurhaushotel: Old budget cannot be kept - “ Main Post ” article from August 7, 2012
  14. ↑ Free State closes the million gap - " Saale-Zeitung " article from October 1, 2012
  15. ^ Kurhaushotel: Free State closes the financial gap - “ Main Post ” article from November 28, 2012
  16. ^ Free state clears the way for new hotel construction , in: Saale-Zeitung of December 13, 2013

Coordinates: 50 ° 11 ′ 52.58 "  N , 10 ° 4 ′ 36.82"  E