White house

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Weißhaus (disambiguation) .

White house
Aerial view of the White House
Alternative name (s):	Weißhaus Castle
Creation time :	14th Century
Castle type :	Moated castle / moated castle
Conservation status:	restored
Standing position :	Summer residence of an abbot, manor
Construction:	plastered white
Place:	Luxemburger Strasse 201 , 50939 Cologne-Sülz
Geographical location	50 ° 55 '5.5 "  N , 6 ° 55' 55.1"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 55 '5.5 "  N , 6 ° 55' 55.1"  E

The surroundings of the Weisshaus in the 17th century (excerpt from the Cologne Schweidkarte by Abraham Hogenberg , 1609)

The Weißhaus is a medieval moated castle in the Cologne district of Sülz .

history

In the Middle Ages , this was the first permanent house in the Weichbild before the walls of Cologne on the road to Trier , today's Luxemburger Strasse . Since it was outside the fortified city, it was always threatened with destruction.

Early and Middle Ages

View from Luxemburger Strasse

The property owners were the abbots of the Benedictine abbey of St. Pantaleon in Cologne, founded in 957 . The “Weißhaus” located just outside Cologne later served them as a summer residence. His name can be found for the first time in a document from 1378, when the married couple Godschalk and Johanna Volver took over a piece of land from the Abbey of Sankt Pantaleon as hereditary tenants. A country house called "Zu dem Wyssenhuys" is mentioned for the first time in 1468, which - just like the more important Frohnhof Sülz - with other houses in the vicinity was destroyed by the city of Cologne during the Neuss War in 1474 when the army of Charles the Bold advanced for security reasons. A later demand for compensation from the Abbey of Sankt Pantaleon was rejected by the City Council of Cologne . Nevertheless, the building was rebuilt after the destruction. However, it burned down in 1584 and was rebuilt in 1613 by Abbot Henricus Spichernagel (1606–1641). Between 1613 and 1619 the Weißhaus was built from scratch, of which the tower is still preserved today. From its first mention up to secularization , the white house belonged to the parish of the " glory " Kriel . In 1658 it was destroyed by flooding from the Duffesbach , after which it was built as a moated castle. In 1669 it was expanded as a summer residence by Abbot Aegidius Romanus (1604–1684).

secularization

After the Napoleonic Wars , the buildings, lands and property of the monasteries and dioceses became state property. For the first time as at that time Good called White House a possession of 300 acres of land will be given. The moat has not been fed by the Duffesbach since the construction of Luxemburger Strasse between 1824 and 1846, because it is led past the castle in pipes below the road. The manor house was redesigned in a classical style in 1843, and in 1849 the Cologne merchant Johann Adam Jansen acquired the castle and commissioned the later cathedral master builder Vincenz Statz to design a castle chapel .

Castle chapel

The Weißhauskapelle is a neo-Gothic cross - rib vaulted chapel next to the tower of the castle. The interior of the chapel was decorated with tempera paintings based on designs by the Cologne conservator, painter and lithographer Johann Anton Ramboux . The palace chapel was consecrated on November 10, 1857 by Cardinal Archbishop Johannes von Geissel in the presence of high-ranking guests of the clerical and secular class.

Tempera painting

The paintings depict the following scenes:

• English greeting
• Visitation of the Virgin Mary
• Birth of Christ
• Presentation of the twelve year old Jesus in the temple
• Death, Ascension and Coronation of Mary in the nave of the chapel
• The male and female family cartridges were shown in the choir .

Stained glass

The windows with burned-in paintings represent Mary's Magnificat based on drawings by Johann Anton Ramboux . They were made in the studio of Johann Anton Friedrich Baudri from Cologne .

Location and building description

The Weißhaus is located in the Sülz district on Luxemburger Strasse between Leybergstrasse, Rennebergstrasse and the green and play area in the extension of Linzer Strasse. The Weißhausstraße, built after the Second World War , is an extension of the Innere Kanalstraße / Universitätsstraße and passes the Weißhaus some distance away.

The water-enclosed castle is a two-storey manor house with a stepped mansard roof , an octagonal stair tower with a Baroque hood on one of the narrow sides, which dates from the previous building (1619), and a 19th century castle chapel. After war damage, the castle was rebuilt several times until 1953. The approximately 5,600 m² moat is spanned by two arched bridges. The northeast arch bridge has a wrought-iron gate from the time it was built (around 1669) with rich ornamentation.

Today's approximately 20,800 m² facility is located in the middle of a park-like garden enclosed by a massive 2.20 m high wall and is not accessible to the public. A modern solitary flat building with swimming pool and sports rooms belongs to the site. The wrought-iron latticework facing Luxemburger Strasse only reveals the front parts of the complex. It is one of the many attractions in Cologne's Lindenthal district .

Present ownership

Until May 2019, the property was privately owned by the heirs of the entrepreneur Heinrich Wolf, who died in 2010 . When the community of heirs began looking for a buyer in 2015, district politicians campaigned for the city of Cologne to buy the building and park in the summer of 2015. It was then to be used by institutions of Cologne University and made accessible to the public. In September 2015, a majority of the Cologne City Council decided that the City of Cologne should not enter into any obligations for the maintenance, renovation and maintenance of the building complex or for the operation of any possible use. The requested purchase price was also considered to be too high. In May 2019, the area was sold to a new owner for an amount of presumably around six million euros. He should come from Berlin.

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Web links

Commons : Weißhaus  - Collection of Images

literature

• Hermann Maria Wollschläger: Cologne Castle Guide. Discovery trips by bike or car to palaces, castles and country estates (= discover Cologne. Vol. 2). Wienand, Cologne 1985, ISBN 3-87909-140-4 .
• Robert Wilhelm Rosellen : History of the parishes of the deanery Brühl (= history of the parishes of the Archdiocese of Cologne. Vol. 6). JP Bachem Verlag, Cologne 1887.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alexander Kierdorf, Cologne - Architekturführer , 1999, No. 206
2. ↑ Robert Wilhelm Rosellen refers to files in the parish archive in Kriel as well as to files of the "Christianity" Bergheim
3. ^ Hans Vogts , The Cologne House up to the middle of the 19th century. , Volume 1, 1964, p. 125
4. ↑ * in September 1604, the son of Adelheid Eicks and Johann von der Fettenhennen. He studied theology and was abbot of St. Pantaleon Monastery from 1646 to 1684
5. ↑ Weddings are to take place soon at Schloss Weißhaus , in Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , August 5, 2015, online , accessed on April 18, 2020
6. ↑ ksta.de October 28, 2018: New owner wanted for top Cologne property
7. ^ After a long search Schloss Weißhaus in Cologne-Sülz is sold Kölner Stadtanzeiger from May 15, 2019