St. Emmeram Castle

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General plan, entire facility (after 2006)
Thurn and Taxis Castle
Crypt chapel in the St. Emmeram monastery
Monastery cloister
Inner courtyard with the Elector's Fountain

The St. Emmeram Palace or Schloss Thurn und Taxis is a castle of the Princely House of Thurn and Taxis in Regensburg , which after refurbishment and new building late 19th century from the buildings of St. Emmeram monastery arose after the monastery in 1810 than is the Princely House had been.

history

St. Emmeram Monastery becomes Emmeram Castle

As compensation for the assignment of postal rights, the Princely House of Thurn and Taxis was given the extensive buildings (three-winged convent building with cloister, refectory, monastery kitchen with staircase, lion hall, chapter hall, library hall) on the monastery grounds of the from the 1810/1812 Kingdom of Bavaria in the course of secularization 8th century monastery of Sankt Emmeram . The crypt chapel of the Princes of Thurn and Taxis adjoining the west wing of the cloister was built in the neo-Gothic style in 1836/41 under Karl Alexander von Thurn und Taxis according to plans by the princely building councilor Carl Victor Keim and protrudes into the garden of the cloister. The building was appraised and praised by the royal master builder Friedrich von Gärtner . The crypt chapel serves as a princely mausoleum, in which the prince and duchess and unmarried children of the Thurn and Taxis family are buried to this day.

Marstall (background) with gastronomy (foreground)
Marstall, entrance door with relief

Construction of the classical stables

A stables was not only intended to house horses and carriages, but also served to train riders and horses and was used as a venue for performances and competitions. A royal stable was a place of courtly pleasure and was thus an important institution of a royal house. Under Prince Maximilian Karl , the construction of a stables and a riding school with a riding hall began in 1827 according to plans by the royal Bavarian court building councilor Jean Baptiste Métivier on the western castle grounds of the former abbey garden. The new Marstall buildings had access to both the eastern castle grounds and the lane running to the west. The Marstall construction project employed 200 workers and many henchmen and was at that time the only major construction project in Regensburg that offered the impoverished population a job. A symmetrical three-winged system was created with the riding arena in the middle part and stables and stable pharmacy for sick horses in the side wings. The broad complex enclosed a courtyard to the east. The total cost of the plant was 250,000 guilders.

The indoor riding arena was artistically designed with 16 plaster reliefs by the royal sculptor Ludwig Schwanthaler . On the reliefs riding and horse-taming heroes of the Greek world of legends ( Hector , Achilles , Ares , Heracles ) are depicted with horses and wagon trains. There is also a large stone relief on the outside above the main portal of the riding house, depicting a Victoria wreathing victorious horses. The entire complex was inaugurated on May 13, 1832 as part of a large festival with music by the court orchestra. Today the completely preserved reliefs by Schwanthaler are considered the best evidence of his work, as his Munich works were almost completely destroyed in World War II.

Reconstruction of the castle at the end of the 19th century

It was not until 1883/88 under Prince Maximilian Maria von Thurn und Taxis that the royal master builder Max Schultze rebuilt and expanded the palace into a residential palace in its current state . The largest sub-project of the construction measure was the demolition of the old, ailing south wing with the former farm buildings of the monastery and the complete new construction of the imposing, 150 m long south wing in the neo-Renaissance style with a front to the Fürst-Anselm-Allee laid out by Karl Anselm von Thurn und Taxis . Work began in the west at the Emmeramer Tor and was not yet completed when Prince Maximilian Maria, who had played a key role in planning the construction, died in 1885 at the age of 23. Under his brother Prince Albert von Thurn und Taxis , the construction was completed in 1888 after the facades from the east wing had been adapted to the park and the facades facing the castle courtyard had been redesigned. The expansion of the interior and the renovation of the state rooms in the east wing took several years. The total construction costs amounted to 2,100,500 marks, not including the in-house electrical installation, which was fed by a steam-powered dynamo from the Nuremberg company Schuckert & Co. The numerous construction contracts provided considerable support for the craft and applied arts in Regensburg.

Extension buildings in the 20th century

Further construction work related to the castle and its residents took place after 1904 to the southwest outside the old castle grounds, when the old building yard of the monastery was demolished and the court marshal's office was built in its place , with the Helenentor, also newly built at the time, at the Emmeramer Tor was attached to the castle grounds. The court marshal's office was supplemented to the north by a modern, second stables, a spacious coach house tiled on the interior walls for carriages and the newly emerging automobiles . The coach house enclosed a large inner courtyard, which was accessible from Waffnergasse via a gate crowned with a clock tower. From here, carriages and automobiles had to have easy access to the then newly emerging Regensburg road network. That is why the tree-lined Helenenstraße was built at the expense of the House of Thurn und Taxis in addition to the Helenentor and connected to the Schottenstraße, which was also newly built at the time, as the new southern access road from Regensburg.

In 2005 the inner courtyard was roofed over, and the former coach house of the castle was converted into a brewery with a view of Fürstenallee .

During the Second World War, the 'Wehrmacht Command Regensburg' was located in the castle.

Parts of the castle are still inhabited by members of the von Thurn und Taxis family.

museum

The state rooms of the palace with tapestries from the Brussels period and interior furnishings from the Palais Thurn und Taxis in Frankfurt am Main can be visited . Part of the cloister and adjoining buildings from the oldest part of the monastery have been preserved. In contrast to the monastery rooms, which were converted into state rooms, the cloister was not changed. As part of the museum, it can be viewed on guided tours. In the Marstall you can see the Marstall Museum with historical carriages and the Princely Treasury of Thurn und Taxis , a branch museum of the Bavarian National Museum. The building was built in 1829 according to plans by Jean Baptiste Métivier.

Palace park, origin and venue

The castle park was only created from the end of the 18th and in the course of the 19th century. The English landscape garden with enclosure was designed by Carl Joseph von Effner from 1872, including the remains of the Emmeram bastion and the city wall . The entire area, which was called Emmeramer Breiten , lay directly in front of the city ​​wall , which enclosed the buildings of the castle and the monastery with the Emmeramer Bastei and then followed the course of the Petersweg. In front of the city wall on the site of today's palace gardens, there were also sections of the fortifications that were cleared and planted with trees under Prince Karl Anselm von Thurn und Taxis . Later, under Prince Bishop Karl Theodor von Dalberg , the site was sold to Prince Karl Alexander von Thurn und Taxis . His wife Therese zu Mecklenburg had the garden palace Theresens Ruh built in the eastern section , the ruins of which were removed in 1945.

Today the castle park is not freely accessible, but annual events take place in the castle park and in the courtyard of the castle, including a garden show in June, the Thurn und Taxis castle festival in July and, since 2001, the Christmas market at Thurn und Taxis castle .

literature

  • Martin Dallmeier (Ed.): "This shiny German court ..." 250 years of Thurn and Taxis in Regensburg (= catalog of the exhibition of the same name in St. Emmeram Castle from July 17 to September 20, 1998). Prince Thurn and Taxis Central Archive u. a., Regensburg 1998, ISBN 978-3980629614 .
  • Gloria von Thurn and Taxis , Peter Styra: Prince Thurn and Taxis Museums Regensburg. Princely Castle, cloister of St. Emmeram, Marstall, Princely Treasury. Fürst Thurn and Taxis Central Archives, Regensburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-9806296-4-5 .

Web links

Commons : St. Emmeram's Abbey  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : St. Emmeram's Palace  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Janina Pentlehner: Ludwig von Schwanthaler's reliefs on the stables of the princely castle of St. Emmeram in Regensburg (1829-1831) . In: Hans Christoph Dittscheid, Peter Styra, Bernhard Lübbers (eds.): Catalogs and writings of the State Library in Regensburg . Universitätsverlag Regensburg, Regensburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-86845-050-7 , p. 123-154 .
  2. ^ A b Karl Bauer: Regensburg Art, Culture and Everyday History . 6th edition. MZ-Buchverlag in H. Gietl Verlag & Publication Service GmbH, Regenstauf 2014, ISBN 978-3-86646-300-4 , p. 325, 336-340 .
  3. ^ Karl Bauer: Regensburg. Art, culture and everyday history. 6th expanded edition. MZ-Verlag, Regensburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-86646-300-4 , pp. 591-594.
  4. ^ Peter Eiser, Günter Schießl: End of the war in Regensburg: revision of a legend. Regensburg 2012, p. 40.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Until the end of the 18th century the street was called Sauwinkel because the monastery pigsties were formerly located there. After that, the location was called Hinter St. Emmeram , where the old building yard of the monastery stood until 1904. Since the demolition of the building yard and the subsequent new buildings, the street has been called Waffnergasse .
  2. ↑ The walled hill of the Emmeramer Bastei can still be seen in the western section of the park.

Coordinates: 49 ° 0 '53 "  N , 12 ° 5' 34"  E