Reinbek Castle

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View from the garden to the south and east wings of the palace
View over the mill pond to the south wing

The Reinbek Castle in Reinbek in southern Schleswig-Holstein was one of the secondary residences of the ducal house of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf built in the 16th century. It is one of the earliest buildings from the reign of Duke Adolf I and is considered one of the best examples of the Renaissance in Schleswig-Holstein. After renovations in the 19th century, the castle was restored from 1977 to 1987 and today serves as the art and cultural center of the city of Reinbek.

history

Prehistory of the castle grounds

The Reinbeck monastery , a convent of the Cistercian women , has been located on the grounds of today's castle since 1250 . It was dissolved in the course of the Reformation in 1528 and the buildings and lands were sold to the Danish King Frederick I for 12,000 Luebian marks . In 1534 the monastery complex got caught up in the turmoil of the so-called count feud and, like many Danish possessions, was plundered and set on fire by Lübeck troops during this conflict .

In 1544 a succession contract came into effect, as a result of which the now Danish King Christian III. a portion of his estate to his younger half-brothers John II. and I. Adolf had come. Two new duchies emerged from this division of territory: The Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein-Hadersleben , which only existed for a few years, and the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf . The first duke of Gottorf's share was the youngest brother, Adolf I, to whom the lands around Reinbek were also added. Reinbek thus formed an exclave of its fragmented territory, which was largely located in Schleswig , further north .

In the early years of his reign - he was awarded the ducal dignity at the age of eighteen - Adolf I was only rarely at his new court in Gottorf Castle . Among other things, he was in the service of Emperor Charles V , took part as a warlord in the Schmalkaldic War and went for England against the Netherlands . After asking unsuccessfully for the hand of Queen Elizabeth I of England, among other things , he married Christine von Hessen at the age of 38 and established numerous offspring. Only in the following period did Duke Adolf develop into the largest builder in Schleswig and Holstein; closely followed only by Heinrich Rantzau , with whom he was almost in friendly competition in this regard. After Duke Adolf had the Gottorf Castle modernized, he also commissioned the construction of the castles in Reinbek, Husum , Tönning and Trittau .

Time of the Gottorf dukes

The builder of the castle, Duke Adolf I of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf

Reinbeck Castle was built for Duke Adolf from 1572 to 1576. It should serve as a secondary residence when traveling to the offices of Reinbek and Trittau. In the neighboring Sachsenwald , large par force hunts took place every year , so that Reinbek was also used as a hunting lodge. Another function was the reception and accommodation of guests from regions south of Schleswig-Holstein, who were spared such a trip to Gottorf. There was no permanent court in the castle, but in the absence of the duke it was administered by a castellan and serviced. The outbuildings of the palace area included a grain distillery, a brewery, barns and stables, and the palace also had a kitchen garden and fish ponds. The actual administration of the Gottorf exclave was largely left to the so-called bailiffs , who from 1646 had their seat in Reinbeck Castle and at the same time took on the duties of castellan.

After Duke Adolf's death, the palace was given the status of a personal treasure and served as a residence for the ducal widows. It was used by Christine von Hessen and after the death of Johann Adolf it served Augusta of Denmark as an occasional residence. The Duchess also made some extensions to the castle around 1620, such as the castle chapel that was destroyed in 1901. After her death, the castle served as a hunting seat, where larger celebrations were also held. Among the guests of the house during this time were Moritz von Sachsen , Johann VI. von Anhalt-Zerbst and Johann Georg II. von Anhalt-Dessau . During the Thirty Years War , the castle was occupied first by Swedish and later by Imperial troops, but it escaped looting and destruction.

As a result of the Great Northern War , the house of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf suffered a defeat in 1713 and the possessions in the Duchy of Schleswig were completely annexed by the Danish royal family. Only the areas in the Duchy of Holstein remained in Gottorf ownership . The ducal family, which initially resided in Kiel Castle , lost its influence and the ducal dignity went to Peter III a few years later . in personal union in the Russian tsarist house. Johanna Elisabeth von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf , the mother of Catherine the Great , traveled to Russia as Countess von Reinbek and intended to spend her evening at the castle, but the castle no longer played an important role as a courtly residence. Damage caused to the office of the bailiffs was still regularly repaired, but the building, which had since become out of date, was no longer modernized.

Royal Danish rule

In 1773 the castle became Danish property as a result of the Treaty of Tsarskoye Selo . The castle continued to serve as the official residence, except that the formerly ducal officials in Russian services now became royal Danish employees. Visits by the royal family were rare and the former Gottorf secondary residence served almost exclusively as an administrative building.

The castle was in increasingly poor condition and was repaired by JA Richter around 1776. However, since the ongoing repairs and operating costs for the castle seemed inadequate for an administrative headquarters, several considerations were made about demolishing it from the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 19th century. The Danish Rent Chamber , the financial authority responsible for the castle, recommended that a new building be built from the demolition material. Such demolition plans did not only affect the castle in Reinbek. In the course of the completion of the entire Danish state , many of the Schleswig-Holstein castles passed into the possession of the Danish royal family and were then broken off for both political and economic reasons. The castles in Reinfeld , Trittau and Ahrensbök were among the buildings destroyed during this period . The impending demolition of the Reinbek Palace was prevented in 1818 by an expert report by the government architect Christian Frederik Hansen . Plans for a renovation by Friedrich Christian Heylmann , aimed at shortening and visually aligning the side wings, were not pursued any further and the palace was left in its old state.

From the Prussian period to the 20th century

The arcades were walled up in the 19th century and reconstructed in the 20th century.

As a result of the German-Danish war and the subsequent German war , the Duchy of Holstein passed to Prussia in 1866 . The Reinbek office was opened in the Prussian district of Stormarn and the castle briefly served as the seat of the district administrator . In 1873 the district office was relocated to Wandsbek and the castle was taken over by the Prussian tax authorities, which auctioned it in 1874. The new owner, who acquired the property for 25,000 thalers , sold it to the Specht family shortly afterwards. The castle was subsequently redesigned by the new owners - regardless of its historical structure - and expanded into a hotel. It retained this function until the end of the First World War .

In 1919 the Specht family sold the castle to Margarete von Patow, who set up the Pniel recreation home in the building, which was influenced by Christianity . The baroness sold the building again twenty years later, the new owner became the city of Hamburg, which from 1939 housed the Reich Institute for Forestry, which later became the Federal Research Institute for Forestry and Wood Management . The castle survived the Second World War without damage and temporarily took in refugees from eastern Germany in the post-war period . In the second half of the 20th century, the institute was gradually moved out of Reinbek and the castle was offered for sale again. In 1972 the Stormarn district and the city of Reinbek bought the building and, under the direction of Horst von Bassewitz , had it restored to its condition from the first half of the 17th century in a comprehensive restoration from 1977 to 1987. It has been available for public use since then.

The castle in the present

As a cultural center, Reinbeck Castle is accessible through numerous events throughout the year. It can also be viewed from Wednesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

A large part of the castle's premises can be visited. Due to their modern use, however, they are only partially furnished as museums. The pieces on display include furniture, paintings and tapestries from the Renaissance period. The former kitchen rooms as well as the large attic, the “crooks”, serve as a framework for changing exhibitions. A city history exhibition is housed in a curved spanner room. Every year the building hosts the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival ; Every summer, the arts and crafts fair Artwork - Werkkunst takes place in the adjacent castle park . The castle administration rents the atmospheric rooms of the house z. B. for meetings, receptions and celebrations. On Fridays there is the possibility of weddings in the Gottorf room. In 1977 the Friends of Reinbek Castle Association was founded. The non-profit association has set itself the goal of promoting intensive use of the castle and the castle park as a culture and communication center.

From 2009 to 2013, the Reinbeck Economic Conference Afghanistan took place here every year , an international conference on economic reconstruction in Afghanistan. The castle also serves as the location for the Lieb & Teuer program .

Castle complex

Castle building

View of the south wing, which contains the festival hall and the courtyard hall. The bar-like extension on the left contained the castle chapel until 1904.

Reinbek Castle was built from 1572 to 1576 on behalf of Duke Adolf I. It was the first residential building in northern Elbe , which was planned from the outset as a purely residential building without a fortification. The castle has a horseshoe-shaped floor plan, which was progressive for the time of construction and influenced by French models such as the Castle of Écouen , but the apparently uniform structure shows no signs of symmetry in its division and proportions . The shorter side wings are connected to a long central wing in the north and south, which together enclose a courtyard , and at the end of the south wing there is a bar-like extension.

The largest area of ​​the building is 51 × 36 meters, the courtyard is 26 meters wide. The castle has two habitable floors, a basement and a high attic. The roof construction is unusual: the slate-covered saddle roof is pulled down to a knee- high on the north and east wings on the courtyard side , which means that the building only appears to be one and a half storeys high at these points, while two full storeys can be seen on the other facades. The stair tower in the courtyard, crowned with an openwork hood, was the only connection between the floors when construction was completed at the end of the 16th century; further stair towers were installed on the south wing under Duchess Augusta at the beginning of the 17th century.

The stair tower. The Husum and Trittau palaces in the courtyard corners also had similar towers.

Stylistic classification

When it was completed, the palace was one of the most modern buildings in Schleswig and Holstein, the three-winged building with the open arcade courtyard - which, however, was once closed with a wall against the service courtyard - represented a departure from the aristocratic seats traditionally designed as multiple houses or closed four-wing complexes Duchies.

The builder of the castle is unknown, but it is believed that the designs could come from Herkules Oberberg or Peter von Maastricht. The castle is designed in the forms of the Dutch Renaissance , a style that Duke Adolf got to know during his frequent trips on site. The Reinbek building is made of red brick and the facades are horizontally structured with light sandstone bands. The window frames are also made of sandstone and decorated with stone crosses, the windows are flanked by wooden shutters . The most unusual building detail for this region is the arcade of the inner courtyard, which is structured by Tuscan columns and which on the ground floor connected the rooms in the north and east wings.

The Reinbeker Castle is the direct, albeit simpler, predecessor of the Husum Castle . This was also built by Duke Adolf from 1577 to 1582 as the second residence next to Gottorf Castle . Dutch craftsmen were employed in Reinbek and Husum, both castles have a modern, three-winged floor plan and are made of brick, which is decorated with sandstone elements. While the Reinbek Castle is still relatively simple in its design, the symmetrically built and multi-tower Husum Castle was designed more representative. The structure there was, however, greatly simplified by later reconstruction work, which means that the Reinbeck Palace is now in the more original state of a Renaissance building.

The Reinbeck Castle also served as a model for the castle in neighboring Trittau , which was also built in 1581 on behalf of Duke Adolf. Like Reinbek, the Trittau Castle, which was built as a successor to a medieval moated castle, was designed in the Nordic Renaissance style and provided with a stair tower in the courtyard corner. The castle in Trittau was demolished at the end of the 18th century.

Modifications and restoration

The exterior of the castle, which had been largely unchanged until then, was extensively rebuilt during the 19th century. The most significant change concerned the castle courtyard. A neo-Gothic porch with an entrance hall, which also served as a spacious staircase, was placed in front of the central wing during the transformation into the palace hotel in 1874 ; the castle was given an approximately E-shaped floor plan. The eastern stair tower on the south wing was demolished and the arcades of the courtyard were walled up, creating an interior corridor that connected the rooms on the ground floor. The stone window frames and crosses were removed and replaced by wooden frames, the roof was provided with diaphragm houses all around and covered with tiles instead of slates. At the beginning of the 20th century, the castle chapel was also given up and converted into new rooms with partition walls.

During the restoration work from 1977 to 1987, all these changes were reversed and the castle was largely restored to the condition it was in the time of Duchess Augusta. The cost of the year-long renovation was then estimated at around 10,000,000 DM. The restoration was financed with the help of the federal government as well as the states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein.

The castle in its current form is the best preserved example of a noble residence in the style of the Dutch Renaissance in Schleswig-Holstein.

inside rooms

Continuous renovation of the interior of the castle

The small chimney room is a reconstructed room from the Renaissance.

The three-wing floor plan of the palace did not yet correspond to the later Baroque understanding of space, which usually came up with a central ballroom and symmetrical apartments. The construction of the Reinbek Palace followed functional principles: the southern wing contained the large festival and court halls, as well as the former castle chapel in its extension since the beginning of the 17th century, the middle wing apartments for guests and the northern wing the court kitchen and utility rooms. The individual rooms of the north and east wing were accessed through the arcade of the courtyard and a gallery below the knee - this was another modern innovation in Schleswig-Holstein's castle construction, where rooms that merged into one another were the rule. In 1589 the rooms were painted by the court artist Jacob van der Wordt. With the use by Duchess Augusta, some modifications were made to and in the castle. They commissioned the installation of a palace chapel in the extension of the south wing and the construction of two additional stair towers, which were supposed to complement the only stair tower in the courtyard at that time. The oak ceilings were painted with ornamental motifs throughout almost the entire castle.

While the exterior of the castle remained largely unchanged until the 19th century, additions and alterations were made on the inside. The oak ceilings were hidden under vaults in the 18th century, and the rooms were partly redistributed, especially due to the use as a hotel. While twenty-four rooms were recorded in the inventory lists at the beginning of the 18th century, in 1974 the palace had around seventy rooms thanks to room separations and partition walls. The palace chapel was closed in 1901 and expanded until 1904; some of the furnishings were transferred to the Reinbeck Maria Magdalena Church.

20th century restoration

Ground floor plan, current condition. The location of the former castle chapel and the broken stair tower are marked.

During the restoration of the palace, a compromise had to be found between the preservation of the historical structure and the future use of the building as a cultural center. While the exterior of the castle was largely restored to the condition of the Renaissance period, some changes had to be accepted for the new use of the interior, especially since the former use of the rooms could no longer be completely reconstructed. After the historicist wing of the staircase was demolished, a modern staircase was necessary to supplement the spiral staircases , which was installed in the elongated central building as well as an elevator system. A tea kitchen is used to supply conference guests, a reconstruction of the castle chapel was dispensed with and the premises were rented to the castle restaurants. The high attic was converted into an exhibition area. Historical traces, if any, were secured and worked out, this particularly concerned the painted beam ceilings in numerous rooms. Due to the fact that the building was used by third parties for centuries, no historical furniture has been preserved from the castle.

The largest rooms in the palace still include the courtyard hall and the ballroom above it in the south wing, which were reconstructed during the restoration phase. The so-called hunting room and the garden room are also based on the earlier shape. What all rooms have in common is that they have been supplemented with stylistically contemporary furniture, but also have modern inventory that is useful for today's use of the cultural center.

Castle grounds

The former farmyard

The palace gardens in 1862
Pen drawing by Johannes Vollmer

The castle was built in the middle of the former monastery grounds. The main building of the monastery complex was a few steps west of the castle, but there are no visible traces of the buildings today. At the same time as the castle, an extensive farmyard, the so-called Vorwerk, was created, which was provided with stables, grain houses and cattle stalls and served to supply the castle residents. There are no more traces of these buildings either, they were demolished in the 19th century and some were replaced by new buildings. The courtyard area also had to be reduced when the north-facing railway line of the Berlin-Hamburg Railway was built.

Castle garden

View through the garden to the east wing of the palace

The castle is located directly on the Bille dammed up to the mill pond . The surrounding park once served both as the palace's kitchen and pleasure garden and was laid out under Duke Adolf. The actual pleasure garden was located to the east behind the main wing and consisted of nine individual, planted compartments (a delimited planting area in a baroque garden ), which were connected by arcades and decorated with sandstone figures. The garden was provided with a pleasure house, Duchess Augusta had a small bath house built for her, and a boat for the ducal family lay in the mill pond. The garden existed until the 18th century, when its main features were modestly baroque. At the end of the 18th century, the royal pension chamber approved the leasing of parts of the garden property. The garden areas near the palace lost their old form due to negligent maintenance and were redesigned into a landscape park in the course of the 19th century, but without a plan or concept.

With the restoration of the castle in the 20th century, the question of a reconstruction of the gardens arose. It should be noted that parts of the former castle area had meanwhile been built on and that a railway line now ran north of the site. A reconstruction of the Renaissance garden seemed too expensive, especially since there were no more remains to be integrated. The Reinbeker Schlosspark was instead freely redesigned and divided into three parts, all of which are for public use. The garden south of the castle to the mill pond was designed in the style of an English landscape park, albeit on a small scale. To the east of the palace in front of the main wing, a garden area was laid out, which, with its four-part design, is reminiscent of the former formal garden, but dispenses with an elaborate flower planting. A small botanical garden was built northeast of the castle.

Web links

Commons : Schloss Reinbek  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Horst von Bassewitz: Reinbek Castle . 1975 (only in the reference library).
  • Helga de Cuveland: The Reinbeck castle garden. History and development from 1578 to the present . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1996, ISBN 3-529-02803-7 .
  • Curt Davids: The castle in Reinbek . 2nd Edition. Wachholtz, Reinbek 1987.
  • Antje Wendt: The Reinbek Castle. Investigations and equipment, layout and architecture of a sovereign palace . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1994, ISBN 3-529-02739-1 .
  • J. Habich, D. Lafrenz, H. Schulze, L. Wilde: Castles and manor complexes in Schleswig-Holstein . L&H Verlag, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-928119-24-9 .
  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein . 2nd Edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-422-03033-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f J. Habich, D. Lafrenz, H. Schulze, L. Wilde: Schlösser und Gutsanlagen in Schleswig-Holstein , pp. 216–219
  2. ↑ a b Curt Davids: Das Schloß in Reinbek , p. 9
  3. ↑ a b Curt Davids: Das Schloß in Reinbek , p. 11
  4. ↑ Curt Davids: Das Schloß in Reinbek , p. 12
  5. ↑ Antje Wendt: Gottorf Castle , p. 46. Schnell + Steiner, Regensburg 2000
  6. ↑ Helga de Cuveland: The Reinbeker Schloßgarten , p. 22
  7. ↑ Curt Davids: Das Schloß in Reinbek , p. 47
  8. ↑ Schloss Reinbek chronological table, 1647–1867 , Curt Davids also reports on the officials as early as the 17th century. The Dehio art guide, on the other hand, only mentions the year 1746.
  9. ↑ a b Curt Davids: Das Schloß in Reinbek , pp. 20, 21
  10. ↑ Hubertus Neuschäffer: Castles and mansions in Südholstein , p. 267. Weidlich, 1984
  11. ^ Curt Davids: Das Schloß in Reinbek , pp. 22-26
  12. ↑ Curt Davids: Das Schloß in Reinbek , pp. 26, 27
  13. ↑ Curt Davids: Das Schloß in Reinbek , pp. 27, 28
  14. ↑ Curt Davids: Das Schloß in Reinbek , p. 32
  15. ↑ Homepage Schloss Reinbek
  16. ↑ a b c d Dehio: Handbook of German Art Monuments Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein , p. 728.
  17. ↑ Curt Davids: Das Schloß in Reinbek , p. 13
  18. ^ CH Seebach: 800 years of castles, palaces and mansions in Schleswig-Holstein . Pp. 27, 28
  19. ↑ Representation of the converted castle ( Memento from September 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  20. ^ Curt Davids: Das Schloß in Reinbek , p. 82
  21. ↑ Schloss Reinbek timeline, 1977–1987
  22. ↑ Curt Davids: Das Schloß in Reinbek , p. 89
  23. ↑ All information from this paragraph from the extensive work by Helga de Cuveland: Der Reinbeker Schloßgarten , Wachholtz Neumünster, 1996

Coordinates: 53 ° 30 ′ 26.3 ″  N , 10 ° 15 ′ 14 ″  E

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on March 4, 2009 .