Palais Thurn and Taxis
The Palais Thurn und Taxis in Frankfurt am Main , sometimes also called "Bundespalais", was built from 1731 to 1739 by Robert de Cotte on behalf of the Heir General Postmaster Prince Anselm Franz von Thurn und Taxis . The palace has a very eventful history: in 1748 it became the seat of the main administration of the Imperial Post Office operated by the Thurn and Taxis , and from 1805 to 1813 it was the residence of the Prince Primate and Grand Duke of Frankfurt Karl Theodor von Dalberg . After the restoration of the Free City of Frankfurt , the Bundestag of the German Confederation met here from 1816 to 1866 .
In 1895, Prince Albert I von Thurn und Taxis sold the palace to the Reichspost after he had the interior of his Emmeram Castle in Regensburg , where it is still located today. In 1905 the city of Frankfurt took over the palace and in 1908 set up the ethnological museum for the collections of the Africa researcher Leo Frobenius .
In 1943 and 1944 the palace was badly damaged in several bomb attacks ; a good part of the substance was retained, e.g. B. Remains of ceiling paintings and stucco . Although rebuilding would have been possible, the building including the portal structures for the new telecommunications tower was demolished in 1951 . The portal structures were then rebuilt in the course of the construction work on the telecommunications tower, including modern reinforced concrete ceilings, but without mansard roofs using the previously secured sandstone parts.
From 2004 to 2009 it was reconstructed with a modified floor plan as part of the Palais Quartier investment project . The developer was the Dutch MAB in a joint venture with BPF, the architects responsible were KSP Engel and Zimmermann . Today there are business premises and shops in the building.
History of the palace
The Thurn und Taxis family comes to Frankfurt
In 1724, Prince Anselm moved at the request of Emperor Karl VI. moved from Brussels to Frankfurt, where the most important branch of the Imperial Thurn and Taxis Post Office in the empire had been located since 1610 . Although the emperor personally transmitted this message to the Frankfurt City Council on September 19, 1724, the city council was reluctant to allow the Princely House to settle there; the strictly Lutheran patriciate would not tolerate a prince within the walls of the imperial city , especially not a Catholic one .
Prince Anselm therefore acquired the land necessary for the construction in the then still loosely built-up Neustadt through a straw man , the wine merchant Georg Friedrich Lind, one of the few Frankfurt Catholics who had citizenship and who could do property transactions. For 30,000 guilders (about one hundred times the annual salary of a city official) Lind bought her property at the Zum Weisse Hof in Grosse Eschenheimer Gasse from the widow of Lieutenant Colonel Winter von Güldenbronn . When he had the purchase entered in the Roman currency register on July 25, 1724 , he revealed to the council who his client was. The council interpreted this as fraudulent misrepresentation and issued a severe reprimand for the fact that he had undertaken to donate his name to this purchase, contrary to his civil obligations .
Despite a conciliatory letter from the prince, referring to the generous endowment of his court and pointing out the advantages that would accrue to the citizens, the council stuck to its stubborn resistance for years. In December 1724, Emperor Karl VI. the city became the deliverance of the land on, hereby but remained just as unsuccessful as the archbishop of Mainz Lothar Franz von Schönborn , who intervened as a mediator. It was not until March 1729 that the council reached a settlement under pressure from the emperor. The treaty to testify to a devotion most subservient to the highest imperial and royal majesty comprised 17 paragraphs. Was detailed u. a. regulated,
- to employ only Frankfurt craftsmen in the construction of the palace,
- never operate a public drinks service by the caretaker,
- not to grant asylum to fugitive criminals at the royal court,
- not to enlarge the princely property any further and
- to only give the castle to the bourgeoisie when selling it.
Prince Anselm signed the contract on March 25, 1729 in Brussels. He was 48 years old and had lost five years to the council's stalling tactics.
The construction of the palace
As early as mid-1727 he had approached Robert de Cotte, France's leading architect, about the planning of the palace and sent a preliminary building program with sketches. He probably got to know its buildings in Paris and Bonn . On September 8, 1727, De Cotte wrote him an appraisal with the plans for a spacious hotel , which not only contained architectural specifications, but also practical requirements, for example from court life. The prince's court consisted of 160 servants, 50 officials from the postal administration and 80 horses. To the annoyance of the council, they were not subject to municipal jurisdiction, but to the prince himself.
De Cotte had estimated the cost of the shell at around 90,000 guilders. The budget was clearly exceeded despite the meticulous audit by the princely site manager Guillaume d'Hauberat .
Hauberat was a builder from the Electorate of the Palatinate in Mannheim and, in addition to performing several annual inspections of the construction site, was also responsible for processing the construction plans. The choice fell on Hauberat, because Prince Anselm was related to the Palatinate court: Elector Karl Philipp , who employed a large number of the best artists of his time in building the palace in Mannheim around 1725 , had the taxis princess after the death of his second wife in 1712 Violanta Therese married.
The sketches of the palace sent to de Cotte in mid-1727 probably came from the pen of Hauberat. A comparison between the existing sketches and the finished building reveals that the building plans were revised several times until a final version was apparently available between April 1729 and June 1731. On September 19, 1731, Prince Anselm decided on the building project and signed a contract regulating the duties of construction management and Hauberat's fee claims. Accordingly, he received 4,000 guilders for his task.
Despite the contract concluded with the city, Hauberat was already negotiating not only with Frankfurt stonemasons but also with Mannheim stonemasons and carpenters in June 1731, who worked at lower prices. After a dispute that grew out of this, which the city council settled through a settlement between the parties on September 8, 1731, the Frankfurt craftsmen lowered their demands a little and thus received the order for a total of 21 items, shown with drawings and prices.
Contracts with other craftsmen have not been handed down. In total, only two final invoices have been received, that of the master mason Adam Schäffer for fl. 44,916 for the years 1733 to 1736 and that of the master stonemason Simon Arzt and Franz Barban for fl . 29,382 for 1735 to 1742. De Cotte had estimated the expenditure for these two trades together at around 37,000 guilders, half that.
A council minutes of August 28, 1731 designated the upcoming spring as the start of construction; Schäffer's calculation also shows that the excavation of the excavation began as early as December 1731. However, the construction of the central corps de logis had hardly begun when the prince asked the city council on July 21, 1732 for permission to purchase the property of the master carpenter Fischer in Kleine Eschenheimer Gasse . After long negotiations, the council agreed on the condition that the prince should testify and promise for himself and his heirs never to claim space again.
In the years that followed, various disputes with residents and craftsmen were repeated, sometimes because of alleged disregard of fire protection or lighting regulations, sometimes because the prince again violated the requirement to only employ Frankfurt craftsmen. All of this dragged the construction out considerably.
The actual construction costs can no longer be determined, especially since considerable efforts were still made in building the interior of the palace. The invoices were negotiated for a long time afterwards. Only in 1743 were all the bills paid for the building, the shell of which was finished in 1734 and ready for occupancy in 1739.
The prince commissioned two important artists, the sculptor Paul Egell and the painter Luca Antonio Colomba, to decorate his palace . Egell had previously been court sculptor in Mannheim, Colomba, from 1715 to 1717 court painter to Duke Eberhard Ludwig von Württemberg . He had u. a. executed the mural for the residential palace Ludwigsburg .
The palace as the seat of the Thurn und Taxis family
Prince Anselm commuted frequently between Brussels and Frankfurt during the construction period. When he was not in Frankfurt, he meticulously influenced every detail of the construction progress through daily letters to his site managers.
As early as 1737 he took an apartment on the ground floor of the main building. Life in the palace can be reconstructed from the reports of the French diplomat Blondel, who was frequenting various major German cities at the time and was also a frequent guest in Frankfurt.
Accordingly, the prince had a palace marshal, an entourage of five to six nobles, as well as pages and servants in abundance. Every day around 25 people came to the table, and they were well served. Apparently the table d'hote often lasted until the early hours of the morning. The company was entertained by its own musicians and actors in the in -house theater . The Duchess of Württemberg, a daughter of the prince, caused a stir when she wandered through the city with company after midnight and woke the residents with trumpets and whistles. This quickly caused another violent dispute between the city and the royal family. When, after a few other incidents, there was even a threat that the prince would be thrown into the Main with horse and cart if he passed the bridge , the prince complained in person to the emperor, who gave the city a severe warning. Prince Anselm did not live to see the final completion of his palace: he died on November 8, 1739 in Brussels.
His son Alexander Ferdinand soon moved his residence to the new palace. He evidently developed a splendid court attitude, because since his time no complaints about the conduct of the Princely House have been documented. After a short time he was actively influencing imperial politics by promoting the election of his friend Karl Albrecht of Bavaria as emperor. On February 12, 1742, Karl Albrecht was crowned Emperor Charles VII in Frankfurt . Because of the Austrian War of Succession , he was the only emperor to also take up his residence in Frankfurt - in the Barckhausen palace on the Zeil , garden to garden with the Palais Thurn und Taxis.
During his time in Frankfurt, Karl raised the post-generalate of the Princes of Thurn and Taxis to the throne . He appointed his friend Alexander Ferdinand as Imperial Principal Commissioner and made him his personal representative at the Perpetual Reichstag in Regensburg. After the sudden death of Charles VII on January 20, 1745, the imperial crown returned to the House of Habsburg . This put Alexander Ferdinand in trouble, as he had to defend himself against accusations of treason. However, by paying homage to Empress Maria Theresa, he succeeded in consolidating his position again. In 1748 she confirmed his rank as principal commissioner. Then he moved his residence to Regensburg forever. The Frankfurter Palais remained the seat of the General Post Office until 1867.
The palace after the end of the court
Even after the Thurn and Taxis Court was moved, the palace remained in the possession of the royal family. As the most representative residential building in the bourgeois town with its otherwise modest architecture, it was very popular as an elegant guest house. On January 2, 1759, during the Seven Years' War , French troops under the leadership of Duke de Broglie occupied Frankfurt. The Duke set up his headquarters in the palace, and his servants were housed in the neighboring houses. To give her quick access to the palace, an opening was broken into a wall that came up against the house of the coachman Gerlach. On behalf of the Duke, the French city commandant, Count Thoranc , asked the council for permission to do so and at the same time promised to restore everything to its original state when the city withdrew.
When the French withdrew from Frankfurt in the spring of 1762, the building had suffered considerable damage. Chimneys and floors were spoiled, parts of the furnishings had been dismantled. The Duke of Broglie had to pay for the damage, according to a list dated June 20, 1761. It took until 1764 to repair the damage.
At the imperial coronation of Joseph II, described in poetry and truth by Johann Wolfgang Goethe , the Habsburgs and their court moved into the palace, as well as at the later coronations of Leopold II (1790) and Franz II (1792). Apparently the interior was damaged again in 1764, possibly as early as 1745, when the palace was the meeting point for various foreign princes on the occasion of the festivities. This was not without problems, as in this case no damages could be claimed from the perpetrators.
In connection with the aforementioned damage and the subsequent repair work, it is interesting that the princely chancellery maintained its negative attitude towards the Frankfurt crafts that had existed since the building of the palace. The Princely Privy Councilor Berberich wrote in a report in 1763: “I know the daring craftsmen of the city pretty well, and their politeness and their irrepressible demands are also known; the best thing is that this work does not last long and can cost little. "
The administrator of the Thurn and Taxis property was from 1770 to 1794 Hofrat Johann Bernhard Crespel , a childhood friend of Goethe, whom ETA Hoffmann immortalized in his novella Rat Krespel and Jacques Offenbach in his opera Hoffmanns Erzählungen .
On May 25, 1789, Karl Alexander , the Hereditary Prince of Thurn and Taxis, married Duchess Therese Mathilde von Mecklenburg-Strelitz . Since the couple wanted to take up residence in Frankfurt, the palace was completely renovated. City architect Johann Georg Christian Hess prepared an expert report dated August 16, 1791, which estimated the repair costs at 3,500 guilders. The contract was awarded to various Frankfurt masters in September of the same year and its costs ultimately remained below the budget.
At the imperial coronation of Franz II in March 1792, the Prince of Thurn and Taxis was able to receive the princely company after the repair work had just been completed in a palace that shone in new splendor. Princess Therese also received her sisters, Princess Luise von Mecklenburg-Strelitz , who later became Queen Luise, and Princess Friederike . Unlike many other members of the societies present during the coronation, they did not live in the palace, but stayed with Goethe's mother, Catharina Elisabeth, in the Goethe House .
Goethe himself never mentioned the Palais Thurn und Taxis in his works. Why he instead described in detail the nearby Schweitzer Palace and even had a model made of it is unclear.
The palace becomes the residence of the Grand Duke
During the coalition wars , the palace initially remained the seat of the traveling post office . It was not until 1806 that it moved back into the center of political events: after the end of the Holy Roman Empire , the prince-primate of the Rhine Confederation , Karl Theodor von Dalberg , received his own principality from Emperor Napoléon . It was formed from the former Electoral Mainz areas east of the Rhine , the imperial city of Frankfurt and the prince-bishopric of Fulda . Prince Karl Theodor mostly resided in Aschaffenburg Castle . Dalberg granted Prince Karl Alexander von Thurn und Taxis, on behalf of the Rhine Confederation states, the "dignity and office of an hereditary postmaster" as a feudal throne. In return, the Prince Primate received the Palais Thurn und Taxis for free use for 15 years as well as an annual pension of fl. 12,000, which he determined for charitable purposes. In his honor, the Große Eschenheimer Gasse was renamed Carlsgasse and the Eschenheimer Tor was renamed Carlstor . In 1810 Dalberg became Grand Duke of the short-lived Grand Duchy of Frankfurt . He had to leave Frankfurt forever on November 2, 1813.
Federal Palace
( steel engraving by Wilhelm Lang based on a template by Jakob Fürchtegott Dielmann )
Due to a secret treaty between Austria and Bavaria dated October 8, 1813, Frankfurt was supposed to fall to Bavaria after Napoleon's defeat. However, the Frankfurt diplomacy managed to convince the Prussian minister Freiherr vom Stein to use himself in the interests of Prussia for the restoration of urban freedom. The Congress of Vienna finally decided to form a Free City of Frankfurt and on June 8, 1815, in the Federal Act, designated the palace as the seat of the Bundestag , the assembly of the 41 states of the German Confederation . Since then it has been called the Federal Palace . Prince Karl Alexander von Thurn und Taxis received an annual rent for his lease.
The public was excluded from the meetings of the Federal Assembly. Its chairman, the Austrian envoy to the German Confederation, had his private apartment in the Federal Palace. After the March Revolution of 1848, the Federal Assembly stopped its work for the time being. Instead occupied by the on June 24, 1848 Frankfurt National Assembly used provisional national government for a short time, the Federal Palace. After the failure of the revolution, the previous conditions were restored in 1849. At the end of 1850, the Federal Assembly moved into the palace again.
From 1851 to 1859 Otto von Bismarck was the Prussian envoy to the German Confederation. The work of the assembly was more and more paralyzed by the Prussian-Austrian conflict. The invitation of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I to a Fürstentag , a gathering of all German princes in Frankfurt, was followed in 1863 by all states of the Confederation except Prussia, whose King Wilhelm I stayed away on the advice of Bismarck. With this, Prussia's break with the German Confederation was de facto complete; it was striving for a small German federal state under Prussian leadership.
In 1866 the Austro-Prussian War broke out, in which Frankfurt remained formally loyal to the federal government and neutral, but was thus viewed by Prussia as an opponent of the war. On July 16, 1866, the Prussian Main Army under General Ernst Eduard Vogel von Falckenstein entered the city without a fight and immediately gave it the toughest contributions. The last mayor of the Free City, Karl Konstanz Viktor Fellner , took his own life out of desperation over the violent measures, the editor-in-chief of the Frankfurter Oberpostamtszeitung published by Thurn und Taxissche Post since 1616 was arrested and suffered a fatal stroke when he was questioned by the Prussian military .
The city takes over the palace
On June 30, 1867, the story of the Post Office operated by Thurn und Taxis ended . Peace returned to the Palais Thurn und Taxis, which remained in the possession of the princely family. Occasional exhibitions were held here, for example a historical exhibition of handicrafts in 1875 and a plant exhibition of the Association of Rhenish Horticultural Associations in 1879 . Then the gradual evacuation of the palace began. Works of art, furniture, sculptures, tapestries and other furnishings, including entire garden pavilions, were transported to Regensburg. Little was left of the palace's former glory.
On April 1, 1895, the Thurn und Taxis house sold the palace for 1.5 million marks to the Reichspost , which had already taken over the Rothe House and the Russian court on the Zeil , a classicist masterpiece by Nicolas de Pigage . The houses on the Zeil as well as the stable building and the riding hall of the Palais behind them were demolished and the imperial main post office was built in their place in the style of the neo-Renaissance . A series of modifications were also carried out in the palace in order to prepare it for postman handling and the billing and business office for telegraph and telephone operations.
At the request of committed citizens, the magistrate turned to the Reichspost to prevent the monument from being further spoiled. Since the post office was not prepared to make any concessions that would have meant additional financial expenditure outside of its legally defined area of responsibility, the city then negotiated with the aim of taking over the entire building complex. The purchase contract was signed on May 18, 1905. In 1908 the palace was set up as an ethnological museum , initially with the collections of Bernhard Hagen . In the 1920s, the collections of the Africa explorer Leo Frobenius were added.
The end of the palace
In 1943, the historian Fried Lübbecke arranged for extensive documentation of the palace. This resulted u. a. over 60 color photos of the precious ceiling paintings by Luca Antonio Colomba . On October 4, 1943, the palace was first hit by fire bombs during the air raids on Frankfurt am Main . The roof of the two pavilions and the Corps de Logis caught fire ; but the fire could be extinguished quickly before it did great damage. Further attacks hit the palace on December 20, 1943 and January 29, 1944. In the heaviest bombing raid on Frankfurt on the evening of March 22, 1944, an air mine weighing almost 4,000 kg detonated in the stairwell of the Corps de Logis. The blast caused the main facade to fall into the inner courtyard and overturned the arcades of the wing buildings. Most of the rotunda facing the garden remained standing.
The telephone cables in the cellars of the palace were intact. Shortly after the end of the war, the post office was able to resume operations, although the buildings of the main post office and the telegraph and telephone exchange had been completely destroyed. In 1948, the Post planned the construction of a new building complex with a 70 meter high-rise building on the site of the former Thurn und Taxis Post Office. Initially, the reconstruction of the palace was even planned, but it turned out that laying the cables running under the building would have cost millions. After long negotiations, the city administration therefore agreed to a compromise. The corps de logis and the side wings were laid down, only the portal buildings on Große Eschenheimer Straße remained in their old form. However, these had been new buildings using the old sandstone elements, as the original portal structures had been completely demolished in the course of the construction work on the main post office to enable a new basement. Instead of the previous mansard roofs , however, they now have an attic with a balustrade .
In 2004 the portal structures were also dismantled to make room for the site access. The sandstone elements of the original building were stored. For the purpose of rebuilding the palace in Pirna, they were cleaned and supplemented by a specialist company and integrated into the reconstructed palace since the end of 2008.
West German postage stamp (1953) with the portal of the palace
West German postage stamp (1953) with the new buildings of the telecommunications office
Location and surroundings
The palace is located in the city center district on the east side of Große Eschenheimer Straße , which leads from the Hauptwache to the Eschenheimer Tor . It is part of the Palais Quartier construction project, which was built between 2004 and 2009 . The neighboring building to the south, the Kaufhof on the corner of Zeil and Hauptwache, dates from the reconstruction period in the 1950s.
On the site of the former garden and the Corps de Logis, the central building of the palace, which was demolished in 1951, the telecommunications tower, which is over 70 meters high, stood from 1952 to 2003 . It was one of the first steel-framed high-rise buildings in Frankfurt and a central hub of the German telecommunications network . To the south and east of the skyscraper were two administrative buildings, 33 and 40 meters high. In the 1960s, up to 5,000 people worked on the site at times.
With the construction of a network control room next to the Europaturm in Bockenheim , the telecommunications tower lost its central importance for the Deutsche Telekom network . In 2004 the entire building complex was demolished for the new building.
architecture
The palace belonged to the late baroque art-historical era . As the last work of de Cote (together with the Palais Rohan in Strasbourg ), it shows a mature style that seemed almost out of date to contemporaries. When construction began, de Cotte was already over seventy years old. Prince Anselm had probably met him in Paris and asked for a memorandum on the planned construction of his residence in Frankfurt. De Cotte replied to him on October 20, 1727:
“ Since I am asked for my opinion, I think I have to direct my thinking to the fact that this house is intended for a grand seigneur. It would therefore be right to create a large apartment on the ground floor, where the gentry and the nobility usually gather, and to create two apartments on the first floor facing the garden, and others in the wings and in the pavilions facing the street To think about the rooms in the attic, also in the courtyards of everything that is necessary for the stables, the covered riding arena, the wagon sheds and the apartments of the officials and domestic servants.
Since the street on which this house is supposed to be built is not very wide, I thought I would pull back the portal in two semicircles to make the driveway easier and to create a more graceful sight for the front, an arrangement that is always beautiful is. "
Drawings by Robert de Cotte
Robert de Cottes 'designs from 1730 have been preserved and are kept in Paris' Bibliothèque Nationale together with the architect's estate .
Garden front
Courtyard front
Section through the Corps de Logis
Street front
Floor plan of the Palais Thurn und Taxis, the outbuildings and the garden, ground floor
Floor plan of the Palais Thurn und Taxis, first floor
Portal buildings
The asymmetry of the portal buildings facing the Große Eschenheimer Gasse was not noticed at first glance. Although the left, northern pavilion has five window axes and the southern, right even seven, in both pavilions de Cotte combined the three inner axes facing the shell of the driveway with pilaster strips to form a risalit and moved them about half a meter to the street front forward. Both risalites were also emphasized by the fact that they received mansard roofs . While the windows on the first floor were each four meters high, they were only 3.80 meters high on the first floor, so that the pavilions appeared a little higher than they actually were. The lower windows also had a slightly wider cornice on two consoles, while the windows on the upper floor were simply framed. All pavilion windows were uniformly about two meters wide, their distance about one meter, so that the dimension between two window edges was exactly half of the approximately six meter high floor (measured up to the cornice).
The cornice cut through the square pilaster strips running from the floor to the eaves, so that they apparently formed a foundation for the upper floor. This double strap could also be seen on the other parts of the building. The cornice consisted of a protruding architrave and an underlying panel. The upper floor was barely noticeably indented by about four centimeters from the ground floor.
To emphasize the entrance portal, the eight-meter-high courtyard wall between the pavilions did not run straight, but jumped back in two quarter circles, which were joined by two short, straight wall sections, separated by pilaster strips. The entire wall of the shell was about 26 meters wide, of which a third was accounted for by the portal . The entrance to the gate, spanned by a round arch, was three meters wide, which was also sufficient for the largest four-horse bodies . The two wooden portal wings were designed by the otherwise unrecognized Parisian sculptor Fressancourt. In 1893 these doors were transported to Regensburg and replaced by a simple wrought iron grille. The doors were designed according to the proportions of the golden section . A curved segment band divided them into two carved fields, the upper ones of which related to the lower and the total area like the Fibonacci numbers 3: 5: 8.
To the left and right of the portal there were two pillars , each 5.11 meters high, placed in front of the wall, which rested on wide plinths 1.20 meters high. The base and capitals of the columns corresponded to the Tuscan order of Andrea Palladios . The circumferential strap was cranked above the capitals so that a platform was created. She carried a stone shield with the imperial crown, hung from the chain of the golden fleece . A lion, the heraldic animal of the von Thurn und Taxis family from the Lombardy Valsassina, jumps against the shield from the right. Left and right of the coat of arms are two vases surrounded by putti . This portal decoration - like the tympanum with the coat of arms of the prince - was created in 1734/35 by the sculptor Paul Egell .
The Cour d'Honneur
Behind the portal opened up the large inner courtyard of the palace, the Cour d'honneur measuring 30 meters square . The north and south wing buildings were each lined by rows of arcades , between which a clear width of 22 meters remained - large enough to allow several two-horse or four-horse equipages to drive up. Coming from the portal, one walked through a columned hall , which was formed by four pairs of columns in Tuscan order. The upper floors of the wing buildings also had arcades corresponding to the lower floor, which were possibly originally also planned to be open, but were given windows during the construction period.
To the right and left of the main courtyard were two side courtyards, the Basse Cours . The northern, smaller of the two courtyards was the so-called "kitchen courtyard". The pastry shop and the large kitchen of the palace were located here, including a septic tank for the kitchen waste water and the toilets for the servants. The southern courtyard, the "Kutschenhof", was surrounded to the east like a horseshoe by the elongated horse stable , which initially offered space for 50 horses, and after an extension even for 80. A one-story riding hall and a one-story coach house for the horses were adjacent to the stable building princely carriage. A well and a dung pit completed the courtyard, which in this way stood out clearly from the neighboring courtyard. A three-meter-wide passage under the eastern wing of the main courtyard connected the two courtyards so that the carriages from the stable could drive up directly to the Corps de Logis.
The Corps de Logis
The Corps de Logis , the main building of the palace, closed off the courtyard to the east. Its west façade was strictly symmetrical, with a central projecting over both floors and three window axes to the left and right of it. The circumferential cornice divided the facade horizontally so that the upper floor with the mansard roof appeared to form an independent structure.
The central projection consisted of a vestibule on the ground floor, which was flanked by two Tuscan columns and two flat pilasters on the left and right . On the upper floor there was a large arched window instead of the vestibule. Three Ionic pilasters each carried the frontispiece . The Frankfurt sculptor Johann Bernhard Schwarzeburger and his sons created the coat of arms decoration of this gable triangle . The two trophies above the corners of the frontispiece are by Paul Egell.
De Cotte also designed a completely symmetrical façade for the garden front with a total of 18 window axes: in the middle a protruding dome structure with three axes, to the left and right of it four window axes, and on the outside the slightly protruding corner projections framed by square corner pilasters and set off by two transverse mansard roofs with their three window axes each. The windows were originally fitted with hinged shutters painted green, based on the French model . When the shops were worn out around 1850, they were simply removed without replacement. The windows on the first floor were protected by wrought-iron railings , which had been removed in 1892 and brought to Regensburg.
For the domed building, the rotunda , de Cotte created a graceful porch, only about 1.60 meters deep, to level out the oval and to form a facade parallel to the overall front. As on the courtyard side, two flat Tuscan pillars on the ground floor each carried the protruding lower cornice, on which two pairs of Ionic pillars stood on the upper floor. On top of it lay the cornice that ran around the entire building, and above it was a frontispiece, which was decorated with a cartouche made of Prince Anselm Franz's initials. The transition from the rotunda to the slate roof of the dome was formed by a stone balustrade with two stone vases on the inner corners. The gable of the rotunda was originally decorated with two stone vases, which were so weathered before 1880 that they were removed without further ado. The upper ring of the domed roof was also crowned with a vase, which, for reasons of weight, was not made of stone, but instead was chased in copper. Despite its height of eight meters, it made it look filigree.
In contrast to the simple dormer windows of the mansards on the garden front, the windows of the dome roof were decorated with carved medallion frames . The round arch above the double door through which one entered the rotunda from the garden was particularly richly decorated. Its keystone consisted of a stone agraffe , from which gilded horns of plenty protruded on both sides .
basement, cellar
All the buildings in the palace had massive basements. The cellar vaults - cross vaults in the smaller rooms, barrel vaults in the larger ones - were on average over 3.50 meters high, their walls six Frankfurt Werkschuh thick. Under the Corps de Logis was the wine cellar, which had space for several 1,200 liter barrels , under the kitchen two ice cellars , under the southern pavilion a cistern for the laundry room and the horse troughs as well as two septic tanks of around 40 cubic meters each.
garden
The baroque garden had already been planned by Robert de Cotte. It stretched between Kleine Eschenheimer Gasse in the north and the spacious riding arena in the south and was completely enclosed by a six meter high wall. De Cotte had planned two carpet beds to the left and right of the central avenue. The beds were later replaced by lawns, each lined with 16 spherically pruned hawthorn trees. On the east wall of the garden, exactly in the central axis of the palace, stood the Gloriette , a small round temple on four pairs of Ionic columns , in front of a false portal .
The temple housed a marble statue created by the Flemish sculptor Jerôme Duquesnoy . Duquesnoy had been burned in Brussels in 1664 for proven fornication with animals , so the statue must have been created beforehand. So it had been in the family for a long time when Prince Anselm Franz brought it to Frankfurt.
According to the inventory lists , the statue showed the goddess of war Bellona , but is also referred to as Minerva . When the doors of the Corps de Logis were open in good weather, they could be seen from the portal in Grosse Eschenheimer Gasse from a distance of a good 100 meters. The statue and the temple were demolished in 1890 and rebuilt in Regensburg. The temple stands in the palace park there, while the statue was given a place in the stairwell of the new palace.
In 1895 the garden wall was torn down to make room for the postal administration to build a garage for the mail cars. The mock portal behind the former temple was transferred to the courtyard of the New Main Post Office , which was built at the same time, and rebuilt there.
Interiors of the Corps de Logis
vestibule
From the main courtyard you first entered the vestibule, a 10 meter wide, nine meter deep and 5.5 meter high vestibule. On the left was the stairwell, straight ahead the garden room and on the right the 12 meter long and eight meter wide dining room. A double door led straight ahead into the garden room, the Sala Terrena . Because the garden hall had an oval floor plan, two narrow gusset rooms were created at the transition to the vestibule. The north of the two was used as a cloakroom to hold the guests' overcoats. The southern gusset served as a storage room for the princely apartment and housed the chaises percées , the stately night chairs , among other things .
The ceiling of the vestibule was supported by eight Tuscan sandstone columns, two each at the two entrances from the courtyard and from the garden room as well as the stairs and the dining room. The four rounded corners of the vestibule were adorned by two pairs of pilasters and a half-column with common bases and capitals. Round arches made of sandstone were located above the doors. Their fighters were connected by a cornice that cut through the entire wall surfaces of the room at two-thirds height. On the warrior cornice, which was slightly cranked as a base, was a baroque cartouche with a prince's crown and monogram held by two putti. The putti sat on an upwardly curved, slightly curved gable, interrupted by the cartridge. These decorations, completely stuccoed , came from Paul Egell. The smooth ceiling rested directly on the pillars with a very flat haunch filled with emblems between consoles.
Garden room
The floor and plinth of the garden room were richly decorated with red and black marble . The pillars with their Ionic capitals and the surrounding cornice were made of white and green stucco. The entire furnishings of the garden hall, including the sopra portraits painted in grisaille by Christian Georg Schütz around 1770 , were brought to Regensburg in 1892, so that apart from the bare walls and the stucco, nothing was reminiscent of the rich furnishings. The stucco ceiling was destroyed in 1924 when the floor of the domed hall above was reinforced.
The apartments on the ground floor
From the garden room, double doors led to the apartments on the garden side of the Corps de Logis. In the south wing was the apartment of Son Altesse Seigneurale Monseigneur , the more modest of the prince's two apartments in the palace. It consisted of an anteroom measuring ten by twelve meters , the bedroom , a large and a small cabinet with windows facing the coach yard, and a captured cabinet d'aisance for the princely toilet utensils .
On the other, north side of the garden room was the apartment de Son Altesse Madame , the living quarters of the princess. This apartment consisted of an anteroom, bedroom, Grand Cabinet and Cabinet de Toilette . To the north, the Princess's Grand Cabinet was connected to the gallery , a 16-meter-long and four-meter-wide room with three large windows along Kleine Eschenheimer Gasse . It was richly adorned with chinoiserie , including leather wallpaper and wall coverings and curtains made of damask . A French door led into the garden. The gallery served as a private dining room (en petit comité) for the princely family. The prince used to have the second breakfast with his wife every morning at ten o'clock, the only opportunity of the day that he spent with her.
The Cabinet de Toilette was a six by six meter room for dressing, powdering and putting on the wig . A small window led to the Basse cour , the northern courtyard. The interior was completely in the Indian style. A staircase led from here to the bathroom in the basement . Baths in private houses were still unusual in the 18th century, which is why its execution caused some constructional difficulties for the Frankfurt craftsmen and great costs for the prince. The bathroom consisted of an anteroom and a bath cell measuring 3.60 by 3.70 meters. Here stood the marble bathtub , which was supplied with warm water by a stove set into the wall and heated from the vestibule . The water was pumped into the boiler by servants from the well under the Basse cour . The used bath water ran into the pit under the kitchen courtyard, which also received the waste water from the kitchen and the two toilets in the courtyard.
The staircase
The stairwell was north of the vestibule, from where it was reached via two low steps. A single flight of sandstone stairs led up to the first floor. At 14 centimeters (half a shoe), the step height was comparatively low, so it was easy to walk on. Corresponding to the clear height of the first floor of 5.60 meters, it had 18 steps up to the first platform and another 20 steps up to the upper platform in the anteroom of the domed hall.
The ceiling of the stairwell was adorned with a monumental painting by the Mannheim court painter Francesco Bernardini . It depicted a scene from Greek mythology , the battle of the gods and the giants : the sons of the Gaa piled mountains on top of each other to climb Mount Olympus and drive out the ruling family of gods . The father of the gods, Zeus, rushes up from the clouds riding an eagle and hurls his lightning bolts at the rebellious giants , supported by the torch-wielding Hecate . Kronos , the god of time, hides behind dark clouds - he can only be recognized by his scythe . In the foreground some giants are still fighting desperately against their doom, while others have already fallen with broken limbs.
The painting was created in 1734/35, together with an altarpiece and a ceiling painting for the prince's house chapel. The altarpiece showed the visit of Zacharias and Elisabeth with the boy John to the Holy Family .
While the altarpiece came to Regensburg in 1892 and thus survived the Second World War, the ceiling paintings were destroyed in 1944. In contrast to the murals of Colomba, there are no color photos of Bernardini's paintings in the Palais Thurn und Taxis.
The living quarters on the first floor
In the south wing there was a second apartment for the prince, the apartment du Maître . It was accessible from the domed hall and its floor plan corresponded to the apartment du Monseigneur on the ground floor, but was more richly furnished, as an inventory list of the castle manager Duché from April 1, 1756 shows. It was probably used for representative purposes only. Following the example of the court of Versailles , the morning lever , the solemn awakening and dressing of the prince, was celebrated with extraordinary splendor. It was considered a special honor to be accredited for the Lever. The guests waited in the anteroom on special chairs and were admitted individually in order to attentively attend one of the precisely prescribed steps of the dressing and to bring their concerns forward.
The rooms along the garden front formed a long suite of rooms, the so-called enfilade , which allowed an unobstructed view through all rooms when the double doors were open. Little is known about the use of the northern apartment during Prince Anselm Franz's lifetime. According to Duché's inventory list, there was a Garde Meubles , a furniture store, here.
The house chapel
On the courtyard side, above the dining room and accessible from the stairwell via a spacious anteroom, the upper vestibule, was the house chapel of the princely family. The ceiling of the chapel was also painted by Francesco Bernardini. The allegorical battle scene with the colossal dimensions of ten by six meters showed the victory of truth over the vices of lies , slander , gossip and malice . Mrs. Truth rests naked on a bright cloud, with her right arm supporting the globe. An angel kneels on her left side. Saturnus kneels behind her . Two putti have seized his scythe. Before their attack, the four vices recede: malice with a poison-spitting snake in hand, slander with snakes wrapped around its arms, naked lie in a mask and the Chronique Scandaleuse , a gossiping aunt with bat wings. The whole scene is benevolently observed by Minerva , the goddess of wisdom and bravery.
The ceiling painting was destroyed in 1944, in contrast to the rest of the furnishings in the chapel, which had been moved to the Regensburg residence in 1892.
The domed hall
The most magnificent hall in the entire palace was the domed hall, which was the only room that was largely preserved until it was destroyed. A double door led in from the upper vestibule. Above the door was a sopra port by Paul Egell with two angels, who are centered around a cornucopia.
The hall formed an ellipse of 14 meters in the longitudinal and 12 meters in the transverse axis. Three four meter high windows let the light into the hall from the garden. The walls were divided into twelve pillar-like pilaster strips of the same width, between each of which was a window, a door or a fireplace. The pilaster strips were made of blue-green stucco lustro on which white cartouches were placed. Each cartouche showed one of the twelve Olympic deities, above was a sign with one of the twelve signs of the zodiac as well as attributes that matched the respective month.
The side walls were 8.5 meters high up to a circumferential gallery, above which the dome rose another 5.30 meters to a total height of almost 14 meters. The throat of the dome rested on the twelve pilaster strips. The ceiling painting by Luca Antonio Colomba reinforced this spatial impression. It showed the ancient gods who paid homage to Prince Anselm Franz and his wife Ludovika.
reconstruction
The palace was rebuilt from 2004 to 2009 according to the plans of the architects KSP Engel und Zimmermann. However, it is not a faithful reconstruction , but a shortened copy of the original building. Among other things, the portal buildings were not erected in their original, asymmetrical shape, but only the two risalits, each comprising three window axes. Parts of the historically valuable natural stone facade stones that had previously been dismantled and stored in Saxony were used in the reconstruction.
Unlike in the past, the new palace is free on all sides, so that the two side wings of the Cour d'honneur now have faces to the north and south that they did not have before because of the side courtyards. These facades have been completely redesigned.
Finally, the garden facade of the Corps de Logis also had to be completely redesigned in order to adapt it to the changed cubature of the reconstruction. Since the Corps de Logis does not protrude beyond the width of the street front facing Große Eschenheimer Straße , it had to be five window axes narrower than the original. Therefore, the restoration of the two corner projections was not carried out. Instead, the facades to the left and right of the rotunda were given five instead of four window axes.
The new palace is used as a restaurant and event center, the wing buildings also for offices and shops. The dome hall should be restored as true to the original as possible - including the ceiling painting. When the project's website was updated in spring 2009, however, all previously existing references to the restoration of interiors were removed. At times it was assumed that the design would be completely omitted due to the financial crisis. At the end of 2009, however, pictures appeared on the website of a company that u. a. was already involved in reconstructions at the Neumarkt in Dresden, which clearly show elaborate stucco work from the dome hall - but still without the ceiling painting.
The building was rebuilt as part of the Palais Quartier by the end of 2009 .
literature
- Fried Lübbecke : The Palais Thurn and Taxis in Frankfurt am Main. Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1955.
- Fried Lübbecke: The face of the city. According to Frankfurt's plans by Faber, Merian and Delkeskamp. 1552-1864. Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1952.
- Wolf-Christian Setzepfandt : Architecture Guide Frankfurt am Main / Architectural Guide . 3. Edition. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-496-01236-6 , p. 16 (German, English).
References and comments
- ^ The Thurn and Taxis'sche Palais in Frankfurt a. M. In: Deutsche Bauzeitung , Volume 32, 1898, No. 89 (from November 5, 1898), p. 574 f.
- ↑ Palais Quartier | Thurn and Taxis Palais. (No longer available online.) In: palaisquartier.de. Archived from the original on May 4, 2011 ; Retrieved January 4, 2010 .
- ↑ Architectura Pro Homine - The Architecture Forum for Reconstruction and New Classical Architecture from Stadtbild Deutschland e. V. - strand “Reconstruction of the Palais Thurn und Taxis in Frankfurt / Main” (March 1, 2009). In: architekturforum.net. Retrieved February 13, 2015 .
- ↑ Stuckart - Imprint. (No longer available online.) In: stuckart.eu. Archived from the original on August 2, 2012 ; Retrieved January 4, 2010 .
Web links
- The Palais Thurn und Taxis. altfrankfurt.com
- “Victory of Truth” - ceiling picture by Karl Bernardini from 1735 in digitized color slides by Paul Wolff , 1943
- "The Olymp" - ceiling picture by Luca Antonio Colomba from 1736 in digitized color slides by Paul Wolff , 1943
- Acquisition of ethnographic museum property in the Netherlands: picture of the ruins of the palace
- Virtual tour through the palace with 360 ° impressions
- Representation of the construction of the telecommunications center in the 1950s and reconstruction of the head buildings of the palace ( Memento from December 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
Old castle | Bachberg Castle | Bolongaro Palace | Bonames Castle | Bornburg / Glauburger Hof / Günthersburg | Fleschenburg | House Fürsteneck | Goldstein Castle | → Grüneburg | Heddernheim Castle | Highest Castle | Wooden house locks | Klettenburg / Augustusburg | Königspfalz Frankfurt | Lersner's Palace / Charlottenburg | Palais Reichenbach-Lessonitz | Palais Thurn and Taxis (Federal Palace) | Philippseck Castle | Saalhof | Schelmenburg | Schönhof | Solms Castle / Rödelheimer Schloss | Stalburger Oede | Ulrichstein
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 54 ″ N , 8 ° 40 ′ 47 ″ E