Morsbroich Castle

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Morsbroich Castle, front facade, 2007

The Morsbroich Museum [ moɐ̯sbʀoːx ] in the Leverkusen district Alkenrath is a former Coming of the Teutonic Order . The castle has been home to the city's modern art museum, the Morsbroich Museum , since 1951 . At the end of April 2016, the museum was put on the red list by the German Cultural Council and classified in category 3, the pre-warning list.

history

Until 1389

Moursbroich Kirspels Rath Bergischen Ambts Miseloh. Plan by the surveyor Franz Ehmans from 1762
Morsbroich Castle around 1860, Alexander Duncker collection

In the literature, the history of origins and ownership is sometimes presented differently from one another. Franz Gruss names Udo Mor von Rode as the first owner of the castle, after whom it was named. Originally he received a fief from Archbishop Heinrich von Molenark and built “a fortified courtyard (castle)” there.

Albrecht Brendler, on the other hand, writes in his text Der Raum Leverkusen in the Middle Ages : “[...] has nothing to do with Morsbroich, on the other hand, the knight Udo Moir von Rode, already mentioned in 1220 [...]. This bears the name "Rode" not from the nearby Schlebuschrath , but from properties in Herzogenrath on the Lower Rhine. The [...] nickname »Moir« actually stood for dark face and skin color ”. Instead, he mentions the documentary mention of the knight Johann Moyr von deme Broichge in 1328 as the beginning of the castle's history.

In his statements, Gruss relies on Anton Fahnes history of the Cologne, Jülische and Bergischen families , Brendler on a document in the main state archive in Düsseldorf and an entry from the interest register stored there. However, Gruss later mentions Johann Moir von dem Broiche and the like in relation to historical sources such as court records and documents. He assumes that Udo Mor von Rode had already built a previous farm.

1389 to 1757

There is agreement in the literature that the family was last mentioned in 1389 and then its trace is lost. Until then, Morsbroich and the patronage of the parish church in Radevormwald remained in the possession of the Moir von Broichs. The ownership structure after this point in time is very unclear. It was not until 1437 that Albrecht von Zweiffel (also Zwyffel) was mentioned in a document as the owner of Morsbroich. In 1491 the heirs of the first Matthias von Zweiffel sold the farm to Heinrich von Ossenberg. With this, parts of the Schlebuschrath forest, the church patronage and a farm in Bensberg were transferred to Ossenberg, after the shareholders were very broad and scattered before. In 1561, the unclear ownership structure at this time is also documented, but Ossenberg brought the ownership back together.

In 1530 the son Wilhelm Morsbroich inherited. In 1575 it was owned by the von Hall family, who 22 years later sold it to their daughter's husband. In 1607 they already had a high land charge on the estate. Also due to the unrest in the Thirty Years' War , Komtur Adolf von dem Bongardt acquired the knightly seat of Morsbroich from the Ballei Koblenz in 1619 in the name of the Teutonic Order . Several regional committees resided on Morsbroich. From 1662 to 1671 Heinrich Freiherr von Reuschenberg zu Setterich was one of them, who bought the knight seat Schlebusch during his time. Other commander were, for example, Karl-Gorwin Adolph von Nesselrode-Ehreshoven, Karl-Gottfried von Loe and in 1716 Jobst Moritz Droste to send . During his tenure, he sponsored pilgrimages to worship Blessed Gezelinus von Schlebusch . The chapel consecrated to him right next to Morsbroich Castle was therefore both a place of silent worship and regular, festive pilgrimages. The chapel was restored in 1662 under Henrich von Reuschenberg.

1757 to 1945

Ford and waterfall in the English landscape garden

Ignaz Felix Freiherr von Roll zu Bernau had the "utterly ruinous" building laid down in 1757 and a castle built in its place in 1775 as a " Maison de plaisance " in the Rococo style. The Falkenlust hunting lodge in Brühl served as a model . Around the same time, an associated English landscape garden was laid out.

In the course of secularization , the property of the Teutonic Order was nationalized in 1803 and thus property of the Grand Duchy of Berg, which was created by Napoléon in 1806 . Napoléon handed this over to his brother-in-law Joachim Murat , who had previously served as marshal in his wars. Murat left the government of the Grand Duchy of Berg largely to his Finance Minister Jean Antoine Michel Agar , who also married one of Murat's nieces. Murat awarded Agar the title of Comte de Mosbourg in 1807 based on the name of the castle, connected with the castle itself and larger surrounding lands. However, Agar himself only rarely resided in Morsbroich, as he was mainly present in Düsseldorf, the then capital of the Bergisches Land. In 1808 he followed his employer Murat to Naples , after he had been raised to sovereign of the Kingdom of Naples .

After the Rhineland became part of the Kingdom of Prussia as a result of the Congress of Vienna and the castle was initially confiscated by the Prussian domain administration, it was returned to Agar on the instructions of the Prussian king. In 1817/1818 Agar then sold the castle, including the lands of the previous county of Morsbroich, to the Cologne banker Abraham Schaaffhausen . The claim made by an art historian that Agar had his wife and their three children murdered in January and March 1818 in order not to have to share the sales proceeds has since been refuted. After Schaaffhausen's death on January 13, 1824, the property remained undivided into his estate, until in 1848 the A. Schaaffhausen bank ran into difficulties due to the overheating of the Cologne real estate market. The conversion into a stock corporation saved the current A. Schaffhausen'sche Bankverein, but when it was re-established, the real estate from Abraham Schaaffhausen's estate was brought in as assets , whereby the Bankverein became the owner of the approximately 1,400 hectare property.

In 1857 the entire rule came to Friedrich von Diergardt , who was one of the founders of the bank association in 1848 and became a member of its supervisory board. In 1859, Diergardt set up a foundation to transform the county of Morsbroich into the family fideikommisse Morsbroich and Dünnwald. His family had the building extended by two side wings from 1885 to 1887 according to plans by the Cologne architect Hermann Otto Pflaume .

Since 1945

After the Second World War , the city of Leverkusen rented the badly damaged building in 1948. After plans to build an old people's or children's home in the castle were rejected , a museum was opened there in 1951 on an initiative of Bertha Middelhauve . In 1974 the Leverkusen city council decided to buy the property. For 3 million DM she acquired the former manor from the Baron von Diergardt administration, who looked after the property on behalf of the heirs. After extensive conversion and renovation work under the direction of the architect Oswald Mathias Ungers from 1981, the museum reopened its doors to the public in October 1985 with the municipal museum for modern art, which is still there today. In addition, the palace is a representation area for the city of Leverkusen and offers the possibility of weddings in the hall of mirrors.

Art collection

Sculpture by Erich Hauser in the palace gardens

The museum specializes in analytical painting , Nouveau Réalisme , Op-Art , kinetic art and monochrome (with, for example, Yves Klein or Piero Manzoni ). In addition, some contemporary artists have found their way into the collection. In addition, there are the sculptures in the palace gardens and exhibitions that change approximately every quarter.

In 1973 the work of art Joseph Beuys' bathtub was destroyed in the Morsbroich Museum .

In 2008, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia acquired a bundle of 23 works by Wolf Vostell from the years 1962 to 1992 from the Ruepp collection and made it available to the Morsbroich Museum on permanent loan.

Awards

In 2009 the museum was named Museum of the Year by the International Art Critics Association AICA . The German section of the association justified its decision with the fact that it introduces the public to current art trends with its own collections of contemporary art and the temporary exhibitions.

Exhibitions

  • 2002: Jürgen Liefmann
  • 2008/09: Gerhard Richter. Overpainted photographs
  • 2016: Diango Hernández . Theoretical Beach
  • 2016: Sigmar Polke - Gerhard Richter . Merry Christmas
  • 2016/17: Drama Queens. The staged collection (curators Markus Heinzelmann , Fritz Emslander and Stefanie Kreuzer)
  • 2018: Against the current. Journey into the unknown
  • 2019: All color! (Jörn Stoya and the collection of the Morsbroich Museum)

literature

  • Alexander Duncker : The rural residences, castles and residences of the knightly landowners in the Prussian monarchy together with the royal family, house, Fideicommiss and Schattull goods. Volume 4. Berlin 1861/1862. ( PDF; 281 kB )
  • Franz Gruss: Courtyards, knight seats, parishes - Leverkusen. Anna Gruss, Leverkusen 1984.
  • Ernst Koenigs. Commemorative publication for the 50th anniversary of the A. Schaaffhausen'schen Bankverein. Cologne 1898.
  • Hermann J. Mahlberg : Morsbroich Castle in Leverkusen. From the knight's seat to the avant-garde museum. Müller and Busmann, Wuppertal 1995, ISBN 3-928766-17-1 .
  • Hermann J. Mahlberg: Morsbroich Castle in Leverkusen (= Rheinische Kunststätten, issue 538), publisher of the Rheinischer Verein für Denkmalpflege und Landschaftsschutz , rheinland media & kommunikation, Düsseldorf 2012, ISBN 978-3-86526-081-9 .
  • Sabine Schütz: Museum Schloss Morsbroich in Leverkusen. Large architectural monuments, issue 378. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1987.
  • City of Leverkusen (ed.): From the knight's seat to the art museum. Morsbroich and its history. 2nd Edition. Self-published, Leverkusen 1988.
  • Leverkusen City Archives (ed.): Leverkusen. History of a city on the Rhine. Publishing house for regional history, Bielefeld 2005, ISBN 3-89534-575-X , page 92 ff.

Web links

Commons : Schloss Morsbroich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ German Cultural Council Politics & Culture 3 | 16 page 17 The Red List , accessed on August 19, 2016
  2. ^ F. Gruss: Courtyards, knight seats, parishes - Leverkusen. Page 165.
  3. ↑ Leverkusen City Archives: Leverkusen. History of a city on the Rhine. Page 59 ff.
  4. ↑ Leverkusen City Archives (ed.): Leverkusen. History of a city on the Rhine. Page 92, line 21 ff.
  5. ↑ Anton Fahne: History of the Cologne, Jülischen and Bergischen families. Reprint of the 1848 edition, Osnabrück 1965.
  6. ↑ Leverkusen City Archives: Leverkusen. History of a city on the Rhine. Page 99.
  7. ↑ State Archives North Rhine-Westphalia - Main State Archives Düsseldorf, Dünnwald Urk. No. 11 and Düsseldorf Monastery files No. 70.
  8. ↑ Leverkusen City Archives: Leverkusen. History of a city on the Rhine. Page 92.
  9. ^ F. Gruss: Courtyards, knight seats, parishes - Leverkusen. Page 166.
  10. ^ State archive North Rhine-Westphalia - Main State Archive Düsseldorf, Jülich-Berg I No. 1011 and 1234.
  11. ^ J. André: Contributions to the history of the communities Wiesdorf and Bürrig. 1912.
  12. ^ HJ Mahlberg: The county of Morsbroich. 700,000 francs and a murder scandal. In: Morsbroich Castle in Leverkusen. , 1995, page 90 ff. On the other hand, Hans Jürgen Dorn: The responsibility of the historian in the province, Part 1: Four dead! A murder plot? . In: Niederwupper - historical contributions 25 (2013), pp. 6–25, here pp. 6–10. Dorn proves that the wife and children had died between 1811 and 1813 and that Mahlberg grossly misinterpreted files 3000,690 in the Leverkusen City Archives. He also points out that Agar died unmolested and honored in Paris in 1844.
  13. ↑ Museum website (accessed August 3, 2020)
  14. ↑ Information from the museum , as of February 16, 2009.
  15. ↑ See exhibition archive , as of February 16, 2009.
  16. ^ Wolf Vostell in the Museum Morsbroich , accessed on September 7, 2012.


Coordinates: 51 ° 2 ′ 10 ″  N , 7 ° 2 ′ 0 ″  E