White Palace (Kassel)

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View of Friedrichsplatz and Obere Königsstrasse around 1840: the White Palace in the center of the picture

The White Palace was a town house in northern Hesse Kassel , the oldest building in later than Residence Palais designated residence of the last two electors of Hesse-Kassel .

construction

The outside rather inconspicuous and unadorned building was built in the years 1767-69 on the northwest corner of Friedrichsplatz by Simon Louis du Ry for Major General and Chief Chamberlain of Landgrave Friedrich II , Friedrich Christian Arnold von Jungkenn called Münzer von Mohrenstamm , who the Landgraf granted a grant from the funds available for the urban expansion. The three-story building, covered by a hipped roof , had a floor plan of around 32 × 16 meters. The main front to Friedrichsplatz was nine-axis, with a balcony on the first floor and a flat gable over the three central axes with the three entrance portals. To Upper King Street was five axes, again with a mounted flat-gabled average over the three window axes. The main floor was on the first floor. An approximately 5 m wide ramp ran along the entire Friedrichsplatz front for the access of carriages .

Jungkenn sold his "Palais Jungkenn" in 1772 to the Hessian estates . They rarely used it as a conference venue and instead rented it out to private individuals. During the time of the short-lived Kingdom of Westphalia (1807-1813), the Ministry of Justice was in it.

Prince Electoral Residence

Since the City Palace in November 1811 during the Napoleonic rule by a major fire had been destroyed, leaving the estates after the restitution of Hesse-Kassel and from Electoral Hesse in November 1813 the Crown Prince Wilhelm II. The palace as a residence. From 1816 to 1821, Johann Conrad Bromeis had it expanded and expanded. Along the Königsstraße, at right angles to the original building, a nine-axis extension with an area of ​​around 28 × 16 m was built. Mainly representative rooms were found in this on the first floor, while the old building mainly contained the living rooms.

Electoral residence and extensions

Red Palace

Elevation of the facade of the Red Palace

After Wilhelm II took office after the death of his father Wilhelm I , he had his residence expanded considerably for representative purposes in the years 1821–1826 with the construction of the Red Palace made by Johann Conrad Bromeis . The new and, with a floor space of around 55 × 40 m, considerably larger and, above all, containing ceremonial rooms, directly adjoined the White Palace and was connected to it. A large inner courtyard was created in the rectangle between the two wings of the White Palace. The old Palais der Landstands was painted white-greenish-gray and has since been called the “White Palace”.

Reichenbach Palace

Wilhelm II had brought his mistress Emilie Ortlöpp with him to Kassel in 1813 , which led to the de facto termination of his marriage to Auguste von Prussia (1780–1841). For his lover, with whom he mostly lived in Philippsruhe Palace in Hanau until he came to power , Wilhelm acquired the Gohr Palace , which was built in 1772 on Königsstrasse and was named after its client, Major General and Director of the Landgrave's Building Department Johann Wilhelm von Gohr It was rebuilt, expanded with a staircase and a side wing with a ballroom and connected to his White Palace with connecting doors.

Later use

When Kurhessen was annexed by Prussia in October 1866 after the Austro-Prussian War , the entire complex of the Residenzpalais became the Prussian state property. The connecting doors from the White Palais to the Palais Reichenbach were walled up in 1870, and in 1881 the Palais Reichenbach, now called the "Small Palais", was sold to a private user.

After the First World War and the end of the German monarchies , they looked for a suitable new use for the Red and White Palais. As early as 1921, the then Lord Mayor Philipp Scheidemann opened the municipal picture gallery in the rooms of the White Palace. On June 30, 1923, the German Wallpaper Museum followed in the Red Palace. In 1934 the White Palace was also included, as the wallpaper collection had grown considerably in the meantime.

Destruction and demolition

After the Palais Reichenbach and the Rote Palais caught fire during a British bombing raid in the Second World War on the night of September 8th to 9th, 1941 and the upper floor ceilings in the Red Palace collapsed, the furniture of the White Palace was partially rescued The furniture of the Red Palace has been completely outsourced. Some of these high-quality examples of Hessian craftsmanship are exhibited today in the Weißenstein wing of Wilhelmshöhe Castle . The rescued holdings of the wallpaper museum were relocated to Einbeck and from 1948 presented in a reduced collection in the Weißenstein wing of Wilhelmshöhe Castle until they were moved to the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Kassel in 1976 .

The White Palace itself burned two years later in the devastating bomb attack on 22/23. October 1943 completely. The ruin was blown up in November 1948 and then gradually demolished until 1950. Remnants of the completely preserved, but then dismantled ramp grating in front of the White Palace are kept in the storeroom of the Hessian State Museum in Kassel.

literature

  • Rolf Bidlingmaier: The Residenz Palace in Kassel. The architect J. Conrad Bromeis and the spatial art of classicism and empire in Kurhessen under Elector Wilhelm II. Schnell & Steiner, Munich / Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-7954-1340-0 .
  • Paul Heidelbach : Kassel. A millennium of Hessian urban culture. Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel / Basel 1957.
  • Wolfgang Hermsdorff: Minister von Jungkenn and his palace. Blick Back No. 1305; Hessische Allgemeine, December 2, 1989.
  • Alois Holtmeyer : The architectural and art monuments in the administrative district of Cassel. Volume VI: District of Cassel-Stadt. Friedrich Bleibaum, Marburg 1923.
  • Hans Huth: The Residenz Palace in Kassel. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin 1930. (Official Guide, Ed. Administration of State Palaces and Gardens)

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ The couple separated from table and bed as early as 1815, but the divorce was refused for political reasons , and only after Auguste's death did Wilhelm marry Emilie, whom he raised to Countess Reichenbach in 1821.
  2. ↑ Cornelius Steckner: The “beautification” of Kassel under Friedrich II. Indications of urban redevelopment by the building department under Johann Wilhelm von Gohr and Claude Nicolas LeDoux. In: Urban planning and urban development in Kassel in the 18th century. Kassel 1983, pp. 33-51. (Kassel booklets for art history and art education 5)
  3. ^ Yannick Philipp Schwarz: The art collection of the city of Kassel in the Weimar Republic. In: ZHG Volume 121, Kassel 2016, ISSN  0342-3107 . Pp. 285-302.
  4. ↑ http://www.museum-kassel.de/index_navi.php?parent=1033
  5. ↑ Most of it is in depots, other items are on loan to the Federal President and the New Palace in Potsdam .
  6. ↑ http://www.museum-kassel.de/index_navi.php?parent=1033

Coordinates: 51 ° 18 ′ 51.8 "  N , 9 ° 29 ′ 47"  E