Karlau Castle

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Karlau Castle, Vischer engraving

The former Karlau pleasure palace or Schloss Karlau is located in the fifth Graz district of Gries . Today the Graz-Karlau prison is housed in the premises of the former castle .

History and design

The castle was built between 1584 and 1590 by the architects Marco Antonio Taddei from Gandria, Ticino (CH) and Antonio Marmoro from Ponna, Val d'Intelvi (I) for Archduke Charles II as a hunting and pleasure palace and as his summer residence. The area around the castle, which was marshland and marshland, was named after the name of the regent "Karl-Au". Originally the castle was supposed to be named "Castle Dobel". However, this led to confusion with the hunting lodge “Tobel” near the village of Dobel, which is located southeast of Graz. After the death of Charles II, the palace was the preferred seat of his widow Maria, who had the building extended.

The castle was surrounded by a wall to keep out uninvited guests. Four towers were set into the wall. They were called: "outer Karlauerturm" (removed in 1786), "Spitalturm" (partially removed in 1714) and "Hundsturm"; a tower was without a proper name. The castle was embedded in the original wetland area and surrounded by a zoo and the imperial hunting area. In addition to water fowl and red deer, falcons, herons and pheasants were also bred in the zoo and released in the Mur floodplains. Even today, several street names in the area (Tiergartenweg, Rebhuhnweg, Reiherstadlgasse, Falkenturmgasse, Fasangartengasse, Auf der Tändelwiese) are reminiscent of the zoo and the hunting area.

From 1756 to 1763, i.e. during the Seven Years' War , Karlau Castle served as a prisoner-of-war house. From 1769 the castle was used as a workhouse and in 1803 it was converted into a provincial prison. In the years 1820, 1847 and 1848 additions were made and from 1869 to 1872 a three-wing cell wing was added according to the plans of Johann Schöbl. Until the Second World War , the prison was continuously expanded.

The old building consists of four floors and has a steep hipped roof. The corner turrets with flat tent roofs were formerly crowned by onion domes. Inside the building there is a chapel dedicated to St. Thomas , which was redesigned from 1967 to 1969. Due to the construction as a prison, nothing can be seen of the original castle.

Hunting area

In the area that is now called Auf der Tändelwiese and is dominated by a large settlement complex , there was a fenced-in enclosure for fallow deer hunting by the lords of the nearby castle in Karlau at the time of Charles II . The word Tändel is an old name for fallow deer.

literature

  • Horst Schweigert: DEHIO Graz . Schroll, Vienna 1979, ISBN 3-7031-0475-9 , p. 186-187 .
  • Karl A. Kubinzky, Astrid M. Wentner: Grazer street names. Origin and meaning . Leykam, Graz 1996, ISBN 3-7011-7336-2 , pp. 45 .
  • Herwig Ebner: Castles and palaces Graz, Leibnitz and West Styria . Birken, Vienna 1967, ISBN 978-3-85030-028-5 , p. 71-73 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Prison Graz-Karlau - JA Graz - Karlau through the ages. Retrieved May 12, 2010 .
  2. ↑ Ebner: Castles and Palaces. P. 72.
  3. ↑ Ebner: Castles and Palaces. P. 72.
  4. ↑ Kubintzky, Wentner: Grazerstraße name. P. 45.

Coordinates: 47 ° 3 ′ 15.5 ″  N , 15 ° 25 ′ 46.8 ″  E