Kavaliershaus (Gotha)

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Kavaliershaus at the Prinzenpalais in Gotha 2014
Memorial plaque on the facade, which was still renovated during the GDR era
Floor plan of the Prinzenpalais and Kavaliershaus from 1904
The Kavaliershaus (left) with the Prinzenpalais around 1825
Fire at the Prinzenpalais in 1838

The Kavaliershaus am Prinzenpalais , Mozartstrasse 1 in Gotha , was a Kavaliershaus built in 1790 . It was part of the entire Schöne Allee complex and was already classified as a monument , marked and entered in the list of monuments during the GDR era . Despite its unchanged condition since then, the Thuringian State Conservator questioned its quality as an individual monument in October 2014 . The building was demolished in May 2017. Currently (May 2018) the "Seniorenresidenz Prinzenpalais Gotha" of the AWO Thuringia is being built in the same place . The investment volume is 13 million euros. Completion should be in spring 2019.

history

Prince August von Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg (1747–1806), the younger brother of the reigning Duke Ernst II. Von Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg , left the palace just a few meters north along Schönen Allee after his own villa, the Prinzenpalais , was completed erect. The master builder was the ducal court commissioner Carl Christoph Besser from Dresden .

The cavalier's house was primarily used to accommodate the prince's guests. The guest apartments were on the mezzanine and first floor of the building. Some members of the court lived in the attic. The kitchen, bakery and cellar were in the basement. Inventories from the 19th century provide information about the dignified furnishings of the apartments for guests. Since the appearance of the Kavaliershaus had to subordinate itself to the ducal palace, it had its simple appearance from the beginning, which is still almost unchanged today.

An important guest who stayed at the Kavaliershaus several times during Prince August's lifetime was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . Prince August maintained a warm relationship with the poet, he was also the godfather and namesake of his son August von Goethe . Goethe's longest and last visit to Gotha was from August 24th to 30th, 1801. The poet celebrated his 52nd birthday here on August 28th, 1801.

Prince August died in 1806 and bequeathed the entire property to his nephew, Prince Friedrich von Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg , who took office as Duke Friedrich IV in 1822. He himself resided in the Prinzenpalais and accommodated all his high-ranking guests in the Kavaliershaus, including the composer Carl Maria von Weber in 1812 .

In 1826 the new duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was established and Duke Ernst I moved into premises in Friedenstein Castle . The Kavaliershaus now served the court together with the Prince's Palace, known as the Ducal Palace, as a guest house. As such, Duke Alexander Friedrich Karl von Württemberg , the father-in-law of Duke Ernst I, lived here from 1832 until his death in July 1833. After him, his son Prince Alexander and his family used the ensemble.

On January 26, 1838, the palace partially burned down, but the Kavaliershaus was not damaged. After everything had been restored, it was given to Hereditary Prince Ernst on March 5, 1842 by his father, Duke Ernst I, on the occasion of his imminent wedding to Alexandrine von Baden .

When Ernst II was raised to Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1844, he took the building as his residence during his stays in Gotha. In 1845 to visit the Duke's sister-in-law, Queen Victoria of Great Britain , a large part of the European aristocracy who had traveled there lived in the cavalier's house. During the Revolution of 1848, the Duke received the citizens here for negotiations. In 1858 the Kavaliershaus was connected to the palace by a two-story gallery building.

From the series of important guests who were accommodated in the Kavaliershaus until 1893, the waltz king Johann Strauss deserves particular mention, who lived here on the occasion of the acquisition of his Saxon-Coburg-Gotha citizenship in 1886. In 1850 and 1876 the important painter and Indonesian Prince Raden Saleh took up residence here for a long time. 1859 the painter Louis Gurlitt , a. a. Great-grandfather of the well-known art collector Cornelius Gurlitt .

Between 1883 and 1910, state employees such as the court courtier Gottfried Adrian and the captain and adjutant Kuno von Wangenheim lived in the building almost exclusively . From 1911 onwards, Duke Carl Eduard left the palace and the associated park and the "apartment in the Cavalierhaus previously owned by the Oberfourier to use from now on until further notice" to the cousin of his wife, Major General Prince Albert of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg .

After the end of the First World War and the associated abdication of the Gotha Duke, the ensemble came into the possession of the State of Thuringia . In 1919 the Kavalierhaus was converted into apartments for civil servants and craftsmen. The alterations, however, concerned almost only the drawn-in partition walls and the clogging of the enfilade . As a result of the legal challenge to the compensation for the prince , Carl Eduard von Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha became the owner of the Kavaliershaus and the palace again in 1926 and in 1933 made the buildings available to the SS for free use.

After 1945 the ensemble came into the possession of the city of Gotha, the Kavaliershaus was initially used for residential purposes and has functioned as a youth hostel since 1958 . Together with the Prinzenpalais it was placed under monument protection according to the Monument Preservation Act (DPflG) of June 19, 1975 and marked with a corresponding plaque. The city later expanded the youth hostel to the east with a new building that housed the heating system.

Start of demolition at the Kavaliershaus in May 2017

In 1999 the heating system was renewed by installing modern gas boilers. A year later, the palace and the cavalier's house were released for the purpose of profitable marketing and offered for sale with reference to its monument status. In September 2014, the managing director of a Thuringian subsidiary of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt announced that he wanted to acquire the 5800 m² property and build over 20 apartments for senior citizens, although the Kavaliershaus “could not be fully preserved”. Thereupon the Thuringian state curator Holger Reinhardt said in October 2014 that the Kavaliershaus “was not entered as an individual monument in the list of monuments because of insufficient properties that constitute a monument”. This assessment was contradicted by experts with reference to its typological uniqueness, the completely preserved building fabric and the importance of its residents. The building historian Udo Hopf, commissioned in 2007, stated again in 2014, “ The half-timbered building of the Kavaliershaus is free of sponge infestation and shows no static damage. Facades and the spatial structure still correspond to the apartments of the former high-ranking guests from the construction period around 1790 ”. The City of Gotha's Monument Advisory Council refused to demolish the Kavaliershaus. And the director of the Schlossmuseum Friedenstein , Bernd Schäfer, said on December 11, 2014: " It would be a sacrilege to tear down the cavalier's house quickly ".

Although the city of Gotha also received a purchase offer from a company that wanted to maintain and renovate the Kavaliershaus for the property that was advertised for sale until December 18, 2014, the city council decided to sell it to the AWO and thus for their demolition and new construction concept. Even an open letter to the Gotha mayor Knut Kreuch , in which the chairman of the Association of German Art Historians , Kilian Heck , pointed out the great historical importance of the building, could no longer save the building. The cultural monument was demolished in May 2017.

literature

  • Georg Dehio , Stephanie Eißing: Handbook of German art monuments. Thuringia. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich-Berlin 1998, ISBN 978-3-422-03050-3 .
  • Udo Hopf: Documentation of the building history studies on the Kavaliershaus at Prinzenpalais Mozartstrasse 1 in Gotha , Gotha, November 2008.

Web links

Commons : Kavaliershaus am Prinzenpalais  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ AWO website , accessed on May 3, 2018
  2. ↑ Heiko Stasjulevics: Ruins in the Gothaer Land: The Prinzenpalais cultural monument is for sale. Thuringian General , March 3, 2012 [1]
  3. ↑ Peter Riecke: Senior living in the Prinzenpalais , Thüringer Allgemeine Gotha, September 5, 2014 [2]
  4. ^ Peter Riecke: Offers for Seniors , Thüringer Allgemeine Gotha, October 17, 2014
  5. ↑ Udo Hopf: The Ensemble Prinzenpalais with Kavaliershaus in Gotha , manuscript as a template for the committees of the city of Gotha, Gotha 2014
  6. ↑ Peter Riecke: Demolition of the Kavaliershaus rejected by the Gotha Monument Advisory Board , Thüringer Allgemeine Gotha, November 6, 2014 [3]
  7. ↑ Ute Rang: " It would be a sacrilege to tear down the Kavaliershaus quickly ", Thüringer Allgemeine Gotha, December 13, 2014 [4]
  8. ↑ Peter Riecke: Erfurt architect wants to renovate the Prinzenpalais and Kavaliershaus in Gotha , TA of November 28, 2014 [5]
  9. ↑ Wieland Fischer: Gotha City Council sells Kavaliershaus behind closed doors , Gothaer Tagespost (Thüringer Landeszeitung), December 20, 2014 [6]
  10. ↑ Wieland Fischer: Rescue band for the Kavaliershaus in Gotha comes too late in: Thüringer Allgemeine und Thüringische Landeszeitung, Gotha, May 17, 2017 [7]

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 39.9 ″  N , 10 ° 42 ′ 42.9 ″  E