Freudental Castle (Allensbach)

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Freudental Castle - west-northwest side
View of Freudental Castle from Langenrain

The Freudental Castle is on the Bodensee Peninsula Bodanrück between the Lake Überlingen and the Gnadensee . Built on a hill, it overlooks the village of Freudental (today a district of Allensbach together with Langenrain ) and can be seen far into the surrounding landscape. The builder was Michael Wiedenmann (1661–1703) from Neresheim, who helped build the Neresheim Abbey .

Building

The view from the northeast shows the central projections
The volute gable with the attached spheres and obelisks

The two-storey building, simple in its basic form, was built in the Baroque period from 1698 to 1700. It has five window axes on the eaves and three on the gable . The building is white by remote corner pilaster strips and profiled Geschossgesimse divided. The windows are alternately provided with triangular or segmented gables . A tiled, pointed gable roof completes the building at the top.

The entrance portal is in the central axis of the south-western eaves side. It is framed by two pilasters and accessible via an outside staircase. Above that there is a dormer window , which additionally emphasizes the entrance area. On the opposite, north-eastern eaves side, the castle has a central projectile , as well as two small dormer windows in the second and fourth window axis.

The two volute gables are subdivided into storeys, structured horizontally by cornices and provided with gable windows. The upper storey has a round window and a bell house on the southeast side and a weather vane on the northwest side . Balls and obelisks are placed on the outer, pedestal-like areas next to the volutes .

After years of stagnation, the castle was extensively renovated from 1988 to 1990. Further renovations were carried out from November 2011 to April 2012.

Interiors and furnishings

There are six rooms on the ground floor, some of which are decorated with rich stucco work . There are four ceiling paintings, one from Christian mythology (the birth and resurrection of Christ) and one from Greek mythology ( Venus and Adonis ). The ceiling painting in the entrance area shows the coat of arms of the builder Baron Franz Dominik von Praßberg and his wife Maria Clara von Hallweil. There are two more ceiling paintings on the ceilings in the staircase (a striding young man with the inscription Festina Lente (hurry with a while) and Cupid and Psyche ).

The upper floor contains a spacious vestibule , the reception hall, the ballroom and two further halls with the most elaborate stucco work. Eleven ceiling paintings are embedded in the stucco. They all show scenes from Greek sagas and mythology. Noteworthy is the restored tiled stove in the ballroom, which is attributed to the stove maker Christoph Hirtenstein from Steckborn. The ceiling paintings show Poseidon in the vestibule , while Artemis , Daphne and Apollon , Akrisios and Danaë , Perseus and Andromeda as well as Actaeon and Artemis can be found in the halls . In the ballroom are Chronos and the Four Seasons, Ganymede , Leda | nine Putten and the goddess lifting shown. The splendidly stuccoed ballroom ceiling by Michael Wiedemann with its elaborate foliage, tendrils and decorations is remarkable .

The elaborate, well-preserved roof structure from the 17th century is impressive.

history

The builder Baron Franz Dominik von Praßberg (1696–1709) was a privy councilor and chief steward / provost in the government of the Bishop of Constance . The ownership of Freudental fell to him through the inheritance of his wife Maria Clara von Hallweil zu Blidegg . Preparations for the construction site began in 1697 and the shell was completed in 1698. Around 400,000 bricks were required for the construction; the foundation walls were one meter thick. The craftsmen reported that the cost of living in Freudental was very high because instead of beer, only wine was available. A day laborer earned 15 kreuzers a day , 8 dl of wine cost 12 to 13 kreuzers, a dinner with beer on the other hand only cost 2 kreuzers. So the client had to undertake to pay for the wine. The master builder was Michael Wiedenmann from Neresheim, who, like later in Neresheim, structured the facade with window gables and horizontal cornices. The building of the palace was finished in 1700.

The chalk drawing by Sophie Ley shows the castle in the 19th century. The original gable shape was no longer preserved.

After the death of the von Praßberg couple, Freudental fell to the former landowners of Bodman. In 1779 Maria Alexander Leopold Franz Freiherr von Reichlin-Meldegg bought the Freudental estate. After a foreclosure auction in 1793, three buyers jointly acquired the property, the Ravensburg mayor von Beck, von Enrodt from Überlingen and the councilor of Schach Edler von Königsfelden. Von Schach later took over the entire property. He sold it in 1804 to Johann Franz Freiherr von Bodman zu Bodman.

In the 19th century, Freudental Castle was largely uninhabited. The castle was renovated in 1865, as indicated by the year on the sundial on the gable wall. A Bodman property supervisor had lived at Freudental Castle since 1870, most recently Karl Glenkler, who was the last mayor of Freudental from 1920 to 1938.

The following overview shows the changing uses in the 20th century:

1914-1918 Internment of Russian prisoners of war
1919-1940 Children's home, then changing short uses
1942-1945 Research laboratory under the command of the Navy
after 1945 Refugee camp
1963-1967 Apartment of an architect and a master potter

In 1975 Freudental was sold to the Konstanz entrepreneur Franz Josef Schmidt. He previously managed the nearby Langenrain Castle . In 1988 he built the enclosure that still exists today. He extensively renovated the castle from 1988 to 1989. First, an outbuilding from the 19th century was demolished, which in the end had served the artist Freimut Meinhardt as a studio. In 1990 the two outbuildings were rebuilt. There are guest rooms in both. The Humboldt Institute rented Freudental Castle from 1990 to autumn 2011 . It held language courses there and used it as a hotel.

Todays use

In June 2011, a Swiss entrepreneur acquired Schloss Freudental. Renovation work was carried out from November 2011 to April 2012. Since it reopened in May 2012, the castle can still be rented for events and conferences.

literature

  • Heinz Finke , Wolfram Vogel: Being close to the lake, castles, castles and mansions around Lake Constance. 1991, ISBN 3-87685-129-7 .
  • Peter Hirscher, Karl Christian Sachs, Richard Welschinger: Contributions to the history of the Bodanrückdörfer Langenrain and Freudental. Hegau Library, Volume 44, 1986, ISBN 3-921413-35-4 .

swell

  • Information board for the community of Allensbach in Langenrain-Freudental

Web links

Commons : Schloss Freudental (Allensbach)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 47 ° 44 ′ 52.7 "  N , 9 ° 4 ′ 42.8"  E