Au Castle (Wädenswil)
The Castle Au is a manor house on the peninsula Au in Wädenswil belong, which also includes a park and agricultural land.
history
In 1651 General Johann Rudolf Werdmüller bought the Untere Au farm on Lake Zurich, including the surrounding land, in order to have a country house built there. The building in the Venetian Baroque style built in the following years served him as a living room and guest house. Werdmüller used part of the surrounding land for agriculture and created a picturesque lake and an exotic plant garden.
After several changes of ownership over the centuries, the estate came to Hans von Schulthess-Bodmer in 1917. He had the old mansion demolished and a mansion built in the style of a baroque hunting lodge. The architect Albert Freytag carried out the construction from 1928–29. The north wing of the villa, the so-called Werdmüllertrotte from the 1720s, was included in the new building.
The main building is characterized by two magnificent loggias on the north and south sides. In the west the striking main tower rises on a square floor plan, in the east castle courtyard there is a round tower. The castle comprises around 50 rooms, some of which are furnished with marble floors, carpets and art objects from Werdmüller's old country house. Since 1989 the estate has been owned by the Canton of Zurich , which it serves as the conference center of the University of Education (PH Zurich).
In addition to the neo-baroque castle, the castle garden with the idyllic Au lake is also worth seeing. The distinctive tower-like house "Gugger" on a hill above the castle dates from 1914.
Trivia
The country estate is the main location of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's novella The Shot from the Pulpit , where General Werdmüller appears as a bearded figure.
The estate was also inhabited by well-known personalities, such as Mentona Moser and Fanny Moser . Even Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock , Meinrad Lienert , Hermann Müller-Thurgau , Sigmund Freud , Ludwig Klages and others were on the estate as a guest.
literature
- Peter Ziegler: The Au: yesterday - today . 2nd, extended edition, Stutz, Wädenswil 1990 (first edition 1984), ISBN 3-85928-079-1 .
- Albert Hauser: Au Peninsula, a stroke of luck: people, culture and landscape . NZZ , Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-85823-321-8 .
- Emil Stauber: The Au peninsula in Lake Zurich: Historical representation. Orell Füssli , Zurich 1913, OCLC 604513473 .
Web links
Coordinates: 47 ° 15 '0 " N , 8 ° 38' 21" E ; CH1903: six hundred ninety thousand eight hundred and eighty / 233925