New Palace (Hermitage)

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New Palace of the Hermitage: Sun temple and circular buildings, in front of it the water basin "Obere Grotte"

The New Palace is one of the two palaces in the historic Hermitage Park east of the Sankt Johannis district of the Upper Franconian city ​​of Bayreuth . It should not be confused with the New Palace in the city ​​center, which was built in 1753 . A special feature of the palace complex is the colourfulness of its outer walls, which is created by stones, crystals and pieces of glass in a mosaic-like arrangement.

prehistory

Labyrinth created by Margrave Georg Wilhelm

Since 1664 there was a fenced forest area ("zoo") in the area of ​​the later Hermitage, which was reserved for the court of the Principality of Bayreuth for hunting. From 1715, under Margrave Georg Wilhelm, a little summer palace ( old castle ) was built as the center of a courtly hermitage . After Friedrich III. Having taken over the affairs of state, he donated the Hermitage to his wife Wilhelmine von Prussia in 1735 .

Building history and description

Oldest draft of the New Palace, around 1750

Between 1749 and 1753, the New Castle was built to the west of the previous castle. The three-part structure consisting of a round central building and two circular buildings on the sides, which are not connected to each other, was originally built as an orangery . In front of the buildings, in the place of a labyrinth - probably consisting of hedges - a large basin with water features , framed by treble layers , was created, which is known as the "Upper Grotto".

Eastern circular building with unplastered back
Color of the outer walls created by stones, crystals and pieces of glass

The construction work was entrusted to the Marquis de Montperny in 1748, who raised the necessary money himself and advanced it to the Marquis. In the first two years of construction 1749/50 he consumed 32,346 guilders and 10 ½ cruisers . In 1752 he received the money back in two installments of 16,000 guilders each. The architect of the ensemble was the director of the court building department Joseph Saint-Pierre .

The orangery was completed in 1751, with the brick walls on the back of the two circular buildings remaining unplastered. The circular buildings with arcades in front , each with ten round arches, were converted into a residential palace immediately after their completion. Their northern front sides were expanded from three to five window and door axes. The vases and figures on the wall over the arcades were removed and flat, shingled hipped roofs were put on. The eastern wing was widened, thus giving up the symmetry of the complex. Four deeper rooms were created, three of which (salon, audience room and corner room with a collection of copper engravings) were given reinforced outer walls and windows facing the central building. The fourth room became the margravine's bedroom, the two northernmost rooms (corner room and "Chinese room") were retained in their floor plans. Behind the latter there was a sloping passage to two wing rooms. In order to create large wall surfaces, the room doors were relocated to the arcades.

The western “man's wing” reserved for the margrave was not widened. Its bedroom was a wing room in the westernmost corner of the building on the edge of the curved wing. There were seven more rooms, including the “Green Salon” and the “Chinese Room”.

Between the circular buildings is the central building with a round interior and octagonal exterior, with which these are not connected. Its dome has eight Rococo - dormers on with high oval windows. It 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 straight sides facing the cardinal points are broken through by double-winged doors, the other four -  concave, curved - wall surfaces by windows reaching down to the floor with triangular gable crowns. The ledge running around the roof, which is optically supported by pairs of columns with composite capitals at the corners of the building, originally carried stone figures.

On April 14, 1945, American aerial reconnaissance aircraft discovered military vehicles in the immediate vicinity of the building. 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 New Palace was destroyed except for the outer walls and the entire interior was burned. The no longer existing dome of the sun temple was initially temporarily replaced by a tent roof.

The reconstruction of the New Palace only took place 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 gastronomic business is now housed in the eastern circular building.

Others

Eagle instead of the quadriga on the sun temple of the new castle
New Quadriga on the Temple of the Sun
  • 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. It had proven too heavy and was beginning to crumble.
  • While the interior of the east building was completed during Wilhelmine's lifetime, that of the western building was not completed until the 1770s under Karl Alexander . The last margrave, who mainly resided in Ansbach , spent the summer months in the Hermitage until 1773.
  • At the time the Principality belonged to Prussia (1791-1806), after 1794, work began on converting the baroque park into an English landscape garden . In this context, with Karl August von Hardenberg as authorized representative, among other things the Simsfiguren of the sun temple were auctioned off in 1804. Under Bavarian rule - probably in 1819 - the quadriga on the sun temple was removed, which then remained without a crown for almost 90 years. In 1907 the state acquired a bronze eagle - the heraldic animal of the Hohenzollern family - at the Nuremberg trade fair, which was enthroned on the building from 1908 to April 1945. The eagle survived the bombardment of April 1945 and is still in storage.
  • 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.
  • In 1945 the ceiling and wall design as well as the floors from Wilhemine's time were probably still original, as were the chimneys, mirrors and bed niches.

literature

(in chronological order)

Web links

Commons : New Palace (Hermitage)  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Arno Kröniger: The New Palace of the Hermitage - Destroyed and Forgotten , p. 40.
  2. ↑ Bernd Mayer: Little Bayreuth City History . Pustet, Regensburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-7917-2266-5 , p. 48 .
  3. ^ Herbert Popp: Bayreuth - rediscovered . Ellwanger, Bayreuth 2007, ISBN 978-3-925361-60-9 , pp. 250 .
  4. ↑ Arno Kröniger: The New Palace of the Hermitage - destroyed and forgotten , p. 61.
  5. ^ Hermitage Neues Schloss from: Bavarian Administration of State Palaces and Lakes, accessed on May 4, 2019
  6. ↑ a b Wilhelmine 2.0 in: Nordbayerischer Kurier from 22./23. June 2019, p. 13.
  7. ^ Werner Meyer: Götterdämmerung - April 1945 in Bayreuth . RS Schulz, Percha am Starnberger See 1975.
  8. ↑ a b How the Margravine went to bed . In: Nordbayerischer Kurier , 2./3. March 2019, p. 15.
  9. ^ Peter O. Krückmann: The Bayreuth of the Margravine Wilhelmine . Prestel, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-7913-1905-1 , p. 140 .
  10. ↑ New landmark for Bayreuth in: Nordbayerischer Kurier of October 24, 2018, p. 10.
  11. ↑ 50 years ago in: Nordbayerischer Kurier, May 15, 2019, p. 10.
  12. ↑ Arno Kröniger: The New Palace of the Hermitage - destroyed and forgotten , p. 43.
  13. ↑ Arno Kröniger: The New Palace of the Hermitage - destroyed and forgotten , p. 34.
  14. ↑ Arno Kröniger: The New Castle of the Hermitage - destroyed and forgotten , S. 41st
  15. ↑ Arno Kröniger: The New Palace of the Hermitage - Destroyed and Forgotten , p. 44.
  16. ^ The coronation in: Nordbayerischer Kurier from 21./22. July 2019, p. 12.
  17. ↑ Arno Kröniger: The New Palace of the Hermitage - Destroyed and Forgotten , p. 48.

Coordinates: 49 ° 56 ′ 53.5 ″  N , 11 ° 37 ′ 24.5 ″  E