Sondershausen Castle
The Castle Sondershausen in the eponymous town in Thuringia was until 1918 the residence of the princes of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen . The extensive complex has an almost 800-year-old building history with significant spatial configurations.
The current look of the palace is largely due to the classicistic transformation of the complex by the Berlin architect Carl Scheppig . The former princely seat with the castle and city museum is one of the most important sights of the city of Sondershausen and is accessible to visitors.
History of the castle
Historical overview
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The town of Sondershausen was first mentioned in a document in 1125. The marshals living there (1211) were in the service of the Thuringian landgraves . The place changed in 1295 into the possession of the Counts of Hohnstein . The construction of a residential tower on the site of the future castle is documented around the year 1300 , the remains of which are still visible as the castle tower. For the first time in 1287 a " Castle of Sondershausen" is mentioned. The Hohnsteiner helped the city from 1295 to 1341 the town charter , it was first called " oppidum called".
Shortly after the end of the Thuringian Count's War (1342–1346), Heinrich V. von Hohnstein died in 1356 without a male heir; As a result of an inheritance contract, his area passed into the possession of the Counts of Schwarzburg , who had already acquired Schlotheim in 1338 and in 1340 through fortunate circumstances Frankenhausen , including the Frankenhausen saltworks . At the end of the 14th century, almost the territories that later corresponded to the Schwarzburg subordinates of Sondershausen and Frankenhausen arose in northern Thuringia. The income from the salt works gave the Schwarzburgers the financial opportunity to hold an opulent court, which in turn promoted the economic development of the city.
Under the rule of Günther XL. von Schwarzburg (1499–1552) from the Schwarzburg-Blankenburg line, the Schwarzburg possessions were almost united. The Reformation brought social changes. Count Günter ("the rich one" or "the one with the fat mouth") had the medieval castle largely demolished in 1533 and began building the renaissance castle in 1534 . The Count used the Saxon court in Torgau as a guide for the construction plans . The south, east and north wings were completed around 1550. The old tower was included in the living area and was given a new hood in 1551. Günter the Rich bequeathed his legacy to the four sons Albrecht von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Johann Günther von Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Günther von Schwarzburg-Arnstadt and Wilhelm von Schwarzburg-Frankenhausen, the last two of whom died childless.
In 1599 the Schwarzburg territories were redistributed, and the two counties Schwarzburg-Sondershausen and Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt were created . Johann Günther I (1532–1586) donated the Schwarzburg-Sondershausen line. In 1681 the Counts Christian Wilhelm and Anton Günther II , who had ruled together until then, divided the country into a special house and an Arnstadt line. In 1713, the two main lines of Schwarzburg signed a family contract through which the primogeniture was introduced and further partitions of the country were forbidden. Before that, both counts had been raised to the rank of imperial prince in 1697 and their country had been declared a direct imperial principality.
In 1709 an orangery was built to the west of the palace on the southern edge of the park : a 39 meter long, two-storey building with a hipped gable roof, the exterior loosened up with pilaster strips. It was also used for court festivals. Strobel from Frankenhausen built the organ into the palace chapel in 1722 . At the same time, the Prinzenpalais for Princes Rudolf and Christian under Prince Christian Wilhelm was built on the market . In the 1760s, instead of the riding arena, the late Baroque west wing of the palace with a connection to the north wing was built according to the plans of the architects Johann Heinrich Breit and Martin Peltier . The ground floor of the stables was and the coaches in the New North Wing remise . The courtyard side of the west wing was decorated with the alliance coat of arms Schwarzburg-Sondershausen / Anhalt-Bernburg and the Order of St. Hubert . In the middle of the courtyard, Johann Ludwig Meil from Ilfeld built the castle fountain with the statue of Hercules in 1770/1771 .
From 1837 to 1838, Prince Günther Friedrich Carl II had the palace complex redesigned by Schinkel's student Carl Scheppig . The west wing was purified in a classical style, the palace terrace, the palace stairs and the palace guard were built on the east side. With this redesign of the eastern slope of the Schlossberg into a market square, Scheppig created “the most monumental and most important ensemble of classicist architecture in Thuringia ”. The so-called " Alte Wache " is very similar to Berlin's " Neuer Wache ". Between the palace and the octagonal house, the stables were built between 1845 and 1851. In the old north wing, a baroque table room was converted into a theater for lovers.
After the death of Prince Karl Günther , the last male representative of the Schwarzburg-Sondershausen line , Günther Victor , Prince of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, also ruled as the last Prince of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen from 1909 to 1918 . His widow, Anna Luise , lived in the south wing of the west wing until 1930 and in the north wing with a view of the market square until her death in 1951. Along with Duke Ernst II of Saxony-Altenburg , she was the only previously ruling German princess who died as a GDR citizen.
The air raid on Sondershausen on April 8, 1945 transformed the pleasure garden into a crater landscape and destroyed the orangery. The castle complex itself burned in various places (especially on the west wing), but could be saved by extinguishing it. The carousel building was slightly damaged. The castle cellar served several thousand residents of Sondershausen as a bomb-proof shelter.
After the prince's abdication , the palace complex served as the seat of various institutions: Luther Academy , Cultural Academy of the Erfurt District, Sondershäuser Music School and, since 2008, Carl Schroeder Conservatory, Sondershäuser Tax Office, Sondershausen Trade Organization, boarding school of the librarianship, castle museum and dance school .
present
The castle, which has belonged to the Thuringian Palaces and Gardens Foundation since 1994 , is now the castle museum with three different exhibition areas. These include a special exhibition area with constantly changing exhibitions by mainly regional artists and the historical rooms or room settings from six epochs, for example the Blue Hall or the Stone Room . Third, the castle houses the natural and cultural-historical area, including the city's history. The most important exhibits include the “ Golden Carriage ”, the only preserved of its type in Germany, and the legendary Püstrich von Sondershausen .
The district music school, which was renamed the Carl Schroeder Conservatory in 2008, and a dance school also take up part of the palace. Concerts are held regularly in the octagon house, and the amateur theater is occasionally performed by an independent association. A restaurant was set up in the castle building. The Marstall, the Wagen- and the Octagonal House have served as the seat of the State Music Academy of the Free State of Thuringia since 2005. The renovation of the west and new north wings, the Octagonal House and the Marstall have largely been completed, further restoration work on other parts of the building is still ongoing.
description
Exterior construction
The castle is an expression of seven centuries of building history. It forms an irregular, four-wing ensemble around an almost triangular courtyard with parts of buildings from different eras. The old parts of the building are the castle-like south and east wings including the castle tower and the old north wing, which are mostly referred to as the Renaissance castle . The newer parts of the building are the late Classicist remodeled west wing and the new north wing, which were originally built in the 17th century in the Rococo style. On the east side of the palace, a large flight of stairs leads down to the town's market, where access to the palace is controlled by the classicist Alte Wache . At the beginning of the 20th century, the addition of the historic gallery gallery, which connects the north and south wings, was built on the front of the courtyard at the tower . Another gallery building connected the west wing with the destroyed palace theater.
inside rooms
The Sondershäuser Castle offers an abundance of rooms from several stylistic epochs; In the Renaissance wing, in addition to the Mannerist vaults on Wendelstein, there is above all the giant hall and the palace chapel, as well as the small, so-called lovers' theater , which also forms the transition to the new north wing.
A classicist driveway, which made it possible to get into the castle in the vestibule by carriages , is located in the west wing. The highlight of this wing is the Blue Hall , which is decorated in the national colors of the former principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen . The painterly design of the ceiling in the “Blue Hall”, which shows a scene from the Callistomythos from Ovid's Metamorphoses , was probably done by Meil.
The painter Hans Apel, an employee of Cranach , came from Torgau . Extensive stucco work can be found in the so-called "small vault on Wendelstein" (1616/1650), probably once a study. Around 1697 the lord of the castle, who had been raised to the rank of prince, had his renaissance castle redesigned into a baroque residence. These changes are particularly visible in the stucco decorations, especially in the Giant Hall , one of two ballrooms in the palace.
Other rooms are the "Roman Room", the walls of which are completely covered with richly painted canvas, and the "Stone Room", which is also touted as the "Special House Amber Room ". It consists entirely of limestone platelets with dendritic manganese oxide inclusions and dates from the Rococo , the late 18th century. The former parade rooms are now used for museum purposes, but their structure has been preserved.
Blue room
Baroque giant hall, stucco ceiling detail
Supraporte in the stone room
Aesop fable: wolf and stork in the small vault
Pulpit and organ in the chapel
Castle park and outbuildings
Castle Park
The castle is surrounded by a park of more than 30 hectares . In the first decade of the 18th century, the pleasure garden to the west of the palace was designed in French style, bordered to the west by the orangery (1702) and the octagonal house (1709/1710). The once baroque gardens were redesigned in the 19th century in line with the new taste of the time into a landscape park with an English character. The park is divided into the upper area with the former ground floor area in front of the west wing and the larger, lower area along the Wipper .
Stables
The Princely Building Councilor Carl Friedrich Scheppig built the multi-part Marstall building between the palace and the octagonal house from 1842 to 1851. It consists of the two-storey central building with a basement and an extension under the roof. Two-story corner pavilions adjoin the east and west sides . Horses and the army camp were housed in the pavilions . After the end of the Second World War until the beginning of the 1990s, various institutions had their headquarters in the Marstall building.
During the renovation in the years before 2003, parquet floors and air conditioning were installed. The renewed Marstall was inaugurated on June 25, 2003 and housed the 2nd Thuringian State Exhibition for a few months. Now the Landesmusikakademie Thuringia has its permanent home there.
The former, closed riding arena , which was located to the north opposite the Marstall and adjacent to the court theater, was lost after 1945 .
Carriage house
To the north-east of the Marstall, the wagon house designed by Building Councilor Scheppig was built in 1868. In 2002 it was renovated and was given access to the upper floor through an annex to the north. The gate entrances were dismantled and glazed. The Wagenhaus was opened on September 7, 2002. The music academy building is currently used as an administration and cafeteria.
Octagonal house
Between 1708 and 1710, Prince Christian Wilhelm von Schwarzburg-Sondershausen built a house with an octagonal floor plan at the western end of the pleasure garden for the purpose of court enjoyment. It was named " Carousel " because its floor consisted of a disc-shaped wooden surface with a central, vertical axis that could be set in motion by a horse goblet in the cellar . Wooden horses were mounted on the disc.
The walls of the building support eight columns, between which two circumferential galleries are attached. Food and drinks were served on these during the amusements. The ceiling was decorated with the painting of the Triumph of Venus by Lazaro Maria Sanguinetti , which was restored during the last restoration.
When the carousel fell into disrepair, the house also lost its name and is still known today as the "octagon house". From 1850 to 1950 it served as a barn for the farmyard opposite. At the end of the 1950s, the octagonal house was used for events. The Loh Orchestra has been holding its summer concerts there since 1961 . As part of the preparations for the 2nd Thuringian state exhibition "NEW DISCOVERED" , which took place in Sondershausen in 2004, the building was completely restored. It is currently used as a concert hall for the Music Academy and the Loh Orchestra. The basement was converted into a jazz cellar, where the Jazz Club Sondershausen e. V. Organized events.
Theater in Sondershausen
As early as 1702, an opera performance in the palace gave an impression of the later glamorous special houses theater era. Court conductor Elias Christoph Stock composed a small opera with 22 scenes and a great ballet entitled In honor of the great Pan . The libretto was written by the Swedish scholar Carl Gustav Heraeus employed at the court . The occasion was the 55th birthday of Prince Christian Wilhelm zu Schwarzburg-Sondershausen (1647–1721). The notes are no longer available.
Comedians from Hildburghausen and Electoral Saxony gave guest performances in the palace in 1731 and 1741. In 1815 an own theater group was founded in Sondershausen, which played in the Kursaal of the Stockhausen sulfur bath. The hall was demolished in 1825 and the same year the demolition material was used to build the Princely Court Theater west of the palace as a new building. The magnificent new theater was opened with Mozart's Don Juan . From 1825 to 1830, for example, 225 opera performances and guest performances were given in Nordhausen . The theater played until World War II.
When Sondershausen was bombed on April 8, 1945, only relatively minor damage to the theater building occurred. But it was then looted and served as a shelter for bombed out and refugees. After the repairs and the new seating, the theater should be reopened on May 1, 1946. It burned down on the day of the planned reopening. An unsupervised cannon furnace is believed to be the cause of the fire that started at six in the morning. Apart from rumors, there was no concrete evidence of arson. The rotunda and its adjoining gallery still mark the entrance to the castle. In 1949 another large fire destroyed the theater barracks on the Schlossberg, with the theater fund and the rehearsal rooms. As a replacement solution for the lost theater building, the practice hall in Loh was converted into the House of Art in 1950 .
Thuringian Castle Festival Sondershausen
The Thuringian Castle Festival is a music theater festival that has been held annually between June and July for four weeks in the courtyard of Sondershausen Castle since 2006. The organizer on behalf of the city is Theater Nordhausen / Loh-Orchester Sondershausen GmbH . Since the 2018 season, the performances have been taking place in the pleasure garden of Sondershausen Castle.
literature
- HF Th. Apfelstedt : Local history for the residents of the Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen. 4 volumes. Eupel, Sondershausen 1854–1883.
- Hendrik Bärnighausen and others: Sondershausen Castle with a park. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1997.
- Wolfgang Diez, Helmut Röttig: Sondershausen. Pictures and stories. Declaration of love to a city. Image archive Röttig, Sondershausen 2000.
- Friedrich Lammert: Constitutional history of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen. Development of a German territorial constitution in terms of cultural history and constitutional law (= Library of Culture and History. Vol. 10, ZDB -ID 541504-4 ). Schroeder, Bonn et al. 1920.
- Heide Lazarus: The Sing-Ballet from Sondershausen (1702). In: Konrad Scheurmann and Jördis Frank (eds.): Newly discovered - Thuringia, land of residences. (1485-1918). Catalog. Volume 2. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2004, ISBN 3-8053-3321-8 , p. 272.
- Günther Lutze: From Sondershausen's past. Volume 1. Eupel, Sondershausen 1905.
- Konrad Scheurmann, Jördis Frank (Ed.): Newly discovered. Thuringia - land of residences. (1485-1918). Catalog. Volume 1. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2004, ISBN 3-8053-3321-8 , pp. 18 and 35.
Web links
- Thuringian Palaces and Gardens Foundation, Sondershausen Castle
- Sondershausen Castle
- Sondershausen Castle Museum
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lutz Unbehaun: The Royal Palace of nationalistic as a symbol of power. The building history from 1570 to 1735 . In: Lutz Unbehaun (Ed.): Heidecksburg Castle. The residence of the counts and princes of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt from the beginning to the present. Rudolstadt 2016, pp. 111–165, here pp. 111–113.
- ^ Carl Scheppig: Personalities in Sondershausen. Ed .: Cultural Office of the City of Sondershausen, Sondershausen 2000, p. 3.
- ^ Rudolf Zießler: Sondershausen. In: Götz Eckardt (ed.): Fates of German architectural monuments in the Second World War. Berlin 1978. Volume 2. p. 496.
- ↑ Friedrich Hartz: April 8, 1945. In: Home and Destruction. April 8, 1945 in Sondershausen. Booklet accompanying the exhibition in the Schlossmuseum Sondershausen 1995. pp. 11–12.
- ^ Sondershausen Castle Festival in the Lustgarten. In: Kyffhäuser Nachrichten , issue March 15, 2018.
Coordinates: 51 ° 22 ′ 17.7 ″ N , 10 ° 52 ′ 12.4 ″ E