Schönwölkau Castle
The Schönwölkau Castle is a great Baroque four-winged building from the 17th and 18th centuries in the district Wölkau of Schönwölkau in Nordsachsen in Saxony . The castle has not been used since it was sold in 1998 at the latest and is threatened with decay.
history
A manor has been mentioned on the site since 1350, which has been owned by the von Schönfeld family since 1533 . After the estate had been destroyed in the Thirty Years' War, the Electorate Rittmeister Christoph Vitzthum von Eckstädt (1633–1711) acquired the property and had a four-wing complex built here from 1660 in place of the destroyed previous building - the largest palace complex in present-day northern Saxony. In the south is the castle courtyard, in the north the adjacent farm yard. The mansion was probably completed before the church was consecrated in 1688. His son, Friedrich I. Vitzthum von Eckstädt (1675–1726), secret cabinet minister under Augustus the Strong and Count since 1711, had the central wing redesigned in high baroque forms in 1711, presumably by an Italian architect who worked in Warsaw. The cube shape, the order of pilasters, the relatively flat, pointed roof and the large gable are reminiscent of the 17th century Baroque villas in Lombardy and Veneto . In contrast, the stone carvings, especially on the balcony that crowns the portal, appear in the style of the Permoser workshop.
Friedrich Vitzthum's widow Rahel Charlotte, née Countess von Hoym , who outlived her husband who died in a duel by 27 years, had the interior expanded, including the large ballroom on the upper floor. She also built the baroque palace in Otterwisch around 1730 . The Schönwölkau estate remained in the possession of the Count Vitzthum von Eckstädt until it was expropriated in 1945 . Restorations took place in the years 1964–1966, 1970 (inside) and 1991/1992 (central building and roof). During the GDR era, the castle was used by the Volkseigen Gut (VEG) Wölkau.
In 1998 a private company of four investors, including Justus Frantz , bought the intact property in order to set up a cultural center, but the promised investments failed to materialize, although the acquirers were sentenced to contractual penalties. The baroque gem, for which the Berlin businessman Wolfgang Hamma is currently responsible, has since been in increasing disrepair and is cordoned off by fences. Failure to maintain the structure seriously endangers the structure. It's for sale.
architecture
Exterior
The two-storey complex is characterized by the splendidly designed south wing. The two-and-a-half-storey and almost square central building, with its truncated hipped roof formerly crowned by a belvedere , emerges with its courtyard and garden fronts as an independent component from the facades of the side wings. The facades are tautly structured by Doric and Ionic pilasters and cranked horizontal beams. The representative, elegant courtyard side is designed with six axes and a ramp in front of the arched portal adorned with the coat of arms. The first floor is accented with a triangular gable above the windows, the ox eyes of the mezzanine with well-designed garments. The facade facing the garden is more richly designed and emphasized in the central axis by a slightly curved main staircase and two large, arched French windows arranged one above the other. In front of the upper floor there is a balcony and a triangular gable with a large oculus , which is framed with tendrils and the coats of arms of the Vitzthum and Hoym families, is attached to the facade . The side wings facing the courtyard are each accentuated by a portal framed with sandstone, in front of which there is a two-armed flight of stairs.
The north wing is emphasized by a slightly protruding middle risalit structured with colossal pilasters . In the central axis there was originally a large, arched gate with smaller gates on the sides. The east wing is also designed with a central projection facing the castle driveway (crowned by heraldic cartouches) with a sizable passage to the courtyard; the west wing is kept simple.
Interior
Inside the central building there is a pilaster-structured entrance hall with barrel vaults and stitch caps in the style of a garden room. A wave cabinet from 1720 comes from a Leipzig workshop. On the ground floor of the central building, groin-vaulted rooms with plastic stucco decorations from the end of the 17th century depicting children with flower bowls that grow from tendrils and are framed by profiled belts with a pearl rod; furthermore a salon with complete paneling made of oak wood of the Neo-Rococo from around 1860. This paneling is structured by profiled frame fields with rocailles carvings and with inserted genre painting; Remains of an older Rococo paneling have been preserved.
Above the ground floor hall, in the piano nobile , is a ballroom extending over one and a half floors with a stucco-profiled mirror vault over a strong cornice. The walls are structured by fine pilaster strips and plastered mirrors and decorated with large still lifes that were changed after 1945 and put together from several pictures; mirrors are arranged between the windows. The entrance is on the north side and flanked by wide pilasters, a fireplace and a mirror.
Park and orangery
Remains of a baroque garden design with three axially oriented main avenues and a garden ground floor have been preserved in the park . To the west there are fish ponds in the wide park . In the park there is the former orangery , an elongated classical plastered building with a hipped roof and a seven-axis garden facade structured by high arcades from around 1700 , southwest of the castle .
literature
- Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. Saxony II. The administrative districts of Leipzig and Chemnitz. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-422-03048-4 , pp. 1039-1041.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Higher Regional Court Dresden 2007 ( Memento from April 13, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Oschatzer Allgemeine Zeitung from January 15, 2013 ( Memento from April 13, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ FAZ from September 25, 2014
- ^ Saxon baroque castle Wölkau falls into disrepair. Retrieved June 28, 2019 .
Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 48.3 " N , 12 ° 29 ′ 47.5" E