Kirchberg Castle on the Raab
Kirchberg Castle is located in Kirchberg an der Raab , a municipality in Styria in southeastern Austria ( 46 ° 59 ′ 20 ″ N , 15 ° 45 ′ 54 ″ E ).
Description of the structure
The building is elongated, two-story and horseshoe-shaped. It has central projections . The building was originally built on a large scale. For example, it used to be a courtyard of honor as a reception courtyard , which was surrounded by two side wings and the residential wing ( corps de logis ). Four towers, bastions , gardens and ponds were also recognizable.
Today, however, only the central wing bears witness to the building's former grandeur.
There are frescoes and stucco decorations inside the building, as well as the main hall with paintings on the stucco and ceilings, which were painted over in the 20th century.
History and owner of the castle
Origins of the manorial rule with the Steinpeisser and Zöbinger
The castle has its origins as a free estate, which was documented in a deed of foundation from 1394 without specifying the owner. From 1414, the property of the Counts of Steinpeiss , a Lower Austrian noble family, is described in the so-called Marchfutterregister via the manor : Between the years 1414 and 1426, Count Hans von Steinpeiss is shown as the owner.
The Knights Zöbinger took over the castle at the end of the 16th century, so that a larger fortification was built under Christoph Zöbinger and this system was connected to the tabor of the church. The reason for this was the destruction of the previous small fortification during aristocratic feuds and the Turkish and Hungarian wars in the 15th century. The Hajduken invaded Eastern Styria in 1605 and the castle was plundered by poorly paid imperial troops. The troops were previously used to fight the Hajduken. Burg Oberkirchberg and Stock Unterkirchberg were described in connection with Schloss Kirchberg an der Raab in the 17th century, at a time when the Zöbinger were in economic need and in 1640 had to allow the seizure of the upper seat at Kirchperg , which was finally renewed in 1669 a family member of the Steinpeisser , Georg Christof von Steinpeiss, was bought.
Heister, Katzianer and the Lichtenstein house
Field Marshal Sigbert Graf Heister acquired the rule of Kirchberg an der Raab in 1696 from the noble noble family of von Steinpeiss zu Aichberg and Kirchberg an der Raab. In 1704 he had the current castle built by Italian master builders on the site of the old Tabor (defense system) . After the transfer of ownership to the Counts Katzianer , the property was auctioned in 1821 and passed to Prince Johann I Josef von und zu Liechtenstein .
Lenz, Fikentscher and Haugeneder-Koschatzky
One hundred years later (1921) Alois Lenz bought the castle. He planned to set up a sanatorium. It did not come to that, Schloss Kirchberg became the property of the municipality and served as a school. In 1955 Wolfgang Fikentscher bought the building. In 1967, Dr. Elisabeth Haugeneder-Koschatzky took over the already badly neglected castle and subjected it to a general renovation.
Herberstein and today's use
Kirchberg Castle was renovated again in 1972 and is now owned by her daughter, Marie Therese Herberstein . In the recent past, Schloss Kirchberg, which is considered one of the most beautiful baroque castles in Styria according to the Austrian author and monument curator Georg Clam Martinic , has repeatedly hosted castle concerts, international music days and other cultural events. According to the Styrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung , there was an incident at the castle in 2018 when parts of the wall of an outbuilding came loose and fell onto the street together with two trees; the fire brigade in Kirchberg suspected that the cause was winter frost, which could have broken open the remains of the walls.
literature
- Kurt Woisetschläger, Peter Krenn (Ed.): Dehio Steiermark (excluding Graz) . Schroll, Vienna 1982, ISBN 3-7031-0532-1 , p. 221-222 .
- Georg Clam Martinic: Castles and palaces in Austria - from Vorarlberg to Burgenland ; Verlag A und M, St. Pölten / Vienna / Linz 1991, 506 pages ( online )
Web links
- Historical view
- Entry via Kirchberg / Raab to Burgen-Austria
- https://www.kirchberg-raab.gv.at : Information on the history of the Kirchberg an der Raab community
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Georg Clam Martinic: Castles and palaces in Austria - from Vorarlberg to Burgenland . Verlag A and M, St. Pölten / Vienna / Linz 1991, p. 332 .
- ↑ a b c d e f g archive. Retrieved June 20, 2018 .
- ↑ Kirchberg an der Raab: History. In: https://www.kirchberg-raab.gv.at/ . Kirchberg an der Raab municipality, May 11, 2018, accessed on May 11, 2018 (eng).
- ^ New Archive for History, Political Science, Literature and Art , Volume Two, March 12, 1830 , accessed on April 17, 2012
- ↑ Allgemeine Encyklopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste, 1829, p. 35 , accessed on April 17, 2012
- ↑ Incident at Kirchberg Castle: parts of the wall and trees fell on the street . In: www.kleinezeitung.at . ( kleinezeitung.at [accessed June 20, 2018]).