Koethen Castle
The Koethen Castle is a building complex in the heart of the city Köthen (Anhalt) , which from 1244 to 1847 than Anhalt served princely residence. From 1603 it was the seat of the Anhalt-Köthen line of the Askanians . The castle is managed by the Kulturstiftung Sachsen-Anhalt as owner.
history
Traces of an early medieval castle are dated to the Slav period. Albrecht the Bear conquered it for the Ascanians. A first castle complex is mentioned in 1396 by sources. The old castle in Burgstrasse burned down in 1547, so that Prince Wolfgang had to move his residence to Bernburg.
The oldest part of today's castle area consists of the Johann-Georg-Bau (1597–1599) and the Ludwigsbau, which was built by the brothers Peter and Franz Niuron from Lugano 1600–1608. On the copper engraving by Matthäus Merian from 1650 you can see how beautiful the palace garden with its islands, basins, arcades and pavilions once was. The throne room, designed by Christian Gottfried Bandhauer two hundred years later , which is now known as the Hall of Mirrors , is also located in the Ludwigsbau . It has white, green and ocher-colored stucco, above it a barrel vault. Bandhauer was also the architect of the Ferdinand Building, built in 1823. The stair tower was adapted to the towers of the Ludwigsbau. The ensemble is completed by the gatehouse and the stone house.
The horseshoe-shaped outer castle area was started with the rococo- style stables in 1766 , supplemented by the remise built in 1833 and the riding hall built in 1821, which burned out in 1940. A multifunctional event center was integrated into the ruins of the former riding arena from 2004 to 2008.
After the princes of Köthen died out in 1847, the Duke of Anhalt-Dessau inherited the Köthen Castle. He had all the furniture removed and set up various state offices in the castle and the Köthen district court. A grammar school was opened in the Ludwigsbau in 1878. Also in 1878 a prison building was built on the east side of the castle, which was demolished in 1991 to restore the original state of construction.
During the Second World War, the northern half of the west wing of the castle was destroyed by a direct hit in a bomb attack on Köthen on July 20, 1944. The eastern extension to the gatehouse was also destroyed. The ruins were torn down.
The Köthen City Archives and the storage rooms of the museums are now located in the Stone House . The Ferdinandsbau has also housed the prehistoric collection of the Köthener Land since 2002. The "Johann Sebastian Bach" music school in Köthen / Anhalt has been located in the Johann-Georgs-Bau since 1984. In Ludwigsbau the Historical Museum for Central Anhalt and the Bach Memorial reside.
The palace chapel was used for church services until 1870. The baroque room then served the Ludwigsgymnasium as a gymnastics and ballroom. For this purpose, the chapel was filled up to the level of the castle courtyard with the excavation of the new prison. 1961 to 1963 this filling was removed again and the original interior design was restored. Another restoration took place from 1989 to 1991. The gallery parapet with four pillars - designed by Johann Michael Hoppenhaupt (1725) - comes from the ruins of the Oberbeuna village church (Geiseltal), which has since been converted into a community center. The organ (by Johann Christoph Zuberbier ) was originally created around 1735 or 1754 for the church in Thurau and installed in the castle chapel from 1986 to 1989.
The hall of mirrors will undergo a general renovation from 2011. The multi-purpose event hall set up in the ruins of the riding arena in 2008 with the “Johann Sebastian Bach Hall” (450 seats), the “Anna Magdalena Bach Hall” (160) and the “Maria-Barbara-Bach” will serve as a replacement venue -Saal "(60) and the" Wilhelm-Friedemann-Bach-Saal "(120) as well as the Café" Leopold ".
Köthen Castle had been owned by the City of Köthen since 1918 and was transferred to the state-owned Dome and Castles Foundation in Saxony-Anhalt in 1997 .
Award
The modern event center with the Johann Sebastian Bach Hall in Köthen Castle is partly housed in the preserved classical building fabric of the former riding hall. Erected in 1821 by the then ducal building manager Christian Gottfried Bandhauer. Only the impressive facade with the large arched windows and volutes in front was preserved after a fire in 1941. Busmann + Haberer Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH, Berlin crowned the historic outer walls with a sculptural relief made of protruding and receding cream-white colored facade panels made of fiber cement . In January 2009, the Johann Sebastian Bach Hall in Köthen Castle was awarded the German Facade Prize for ventilated curtain facades from the Association of Building Materials and Components for Ventilated Facades (FVHF). “The riveted fiber cement panels follow the aluminum substructure logically and clearly, their appearance appears complex despite the manual implementation. The music hall is a successful example of the implementation of a special building task, which was also well solved with simple means, ”said the jury's explanation.
Others
Köthen Castle had been the seat of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft ( Fruit Bringing Society) , the first German language association founded in Weimar in 1617 , since 1629 . Ludwig von Anhalt-Köthen (1579–1650) was its co-founder and lifelong “head”.
Johann Sebastian Bach worked in Köthen between 1717 and 1723 as Leopold von Anhalt-Köthen's court conductor , where he composed parts of his Brandenburg Concerts and his cycle The Well-Tempered Clavier . A Bach memorial is located in the Ludwigsbau.
The Ferdinand building is the seat of the ornithological collection of Johann Friedrich Naumann (1780–1857). Naumann is considered to be the founder of this science.
The palace courtyard, the hall of mirrors, the palace chapel and the café rooms can also be rented by external organizers.
Web links
- Page about Köthen Castle on the homepage of the Dome and Castles Foundation in Saxony-Anhalt
- Page about Köthen Castle on the homepage of the City of Köthen (Anhalt)
- Richly illustrated page about Köthen Castle on the homepage of the Bach Abel Competition
- Information, picture gallery and route map
- Awarded the German Facade Prize for VHF 2009
- Museums and cultural sites with fiber cement
Individual evidence
- ^ Renate Kroll: Koethen . In: Götz Eckardt (ed.): Fates of German architectural monuments in the Second World War. Henschelverlag, Berlin 1978. p. 329.
- ↑ Homepage of the Oberbeuna Church
- ↑ See: Wieland Rühle: About the restoration and partial reconstruction of the organ built in 1754 by Johann Christoph Zuberbier for the church in Thurau / Anhalt. In: Historisches Museum Köthen (Hrsg.): The castle chapel in Köthen and its musical instruments. Cöthener Bach booklets 5. Koethen 1992.
- ↑ FVHF: Documentation German Facade Prize for VHF 2009 Brochure as PDF
Coordinates: 51 ° 45 ′ 13 ″ N , 11 ° 58 ′ 36 ″ E