Location: Lienz, Tyrol Map
Constructed: 13th century
Burck Castle or Burg Bruck is a medieval citadel in Lienz (not to be confused with Linz) in Tyrol region in Austria.
Original human settlement on a site of Bruck Castle date back to at least 1000 BC. Archeological digs that were carried out in the 20th century discovered several axes of copper and bronze. However modern day Bruck Castle was found in the 13th century (between 1252 and 1277) as a residence for family of Meinhardiner Counts of Gorz. The last male member of the family died around 1500 childless. The estate was therefore passed to King Maximilian I, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
The oldest finds, including two axes made of
copper or bronze, which indicate settlement in the area around the
Schlossberg, are around 3000 years old. Bruck Castle was built by the
Counts of Gorizia between 1252 and 1277 and served as their residence
until 1500. When the last Count of Gorizia, Leonhard von Gorizia, died
childless in the same year, all of his possessions, including Bruck
Castle, fell to King Maximilian I, the later Emperor, who united it with
the County of Tyrol. After a short period of ownership by Virgil von
Graben, Maximilian sold the Lordship of Lienz, including the castle, to
Baron Michael von Wolkenstein-Rodenegg on August 10, 1501 for 22,000
guilders for "eternal redemption". The barons stayed in the castle until
around 1608. The brothers Sigmund and Christoph von Wolkenstein-Rodenegg
built the Liebburg as a residential castle between 1606 and 1608 due to
the cold in the castle on today's main square in the city of Lienz. From
1796 until the city was occupied by troops of the French Republic under
General Joubert in 1797, Bruck Castle was used as barracks. In the
following years it was privately owned and served as an inn, brewery and
shipping company. On June 13, 1943, the local history museum of the East
Tyrol district was opened in Bruck Castle.
Structure
Through
the main gate and over a sloping stone bridge you reach the elongated
inner courtyard. The six-storey, about 37 m high keep towers up on its
southwest side. It can be climbed inside via a wooden staircase. A
Romanesque double-arched window with a central column and bud capital
from the time of construction can be seen on its second floor. On the
top level of the tower there is an all-round viewing gallery with a very
good view of Lienz and the surrounding mountains. The palace chapel is
located on the southeast side of the courtyard.
The two-storey castle chapel with a square floor
plan has a round apse. The walls are richly painted by various artists
in the late Gothic style. The Fourteen Holy Helpers in the apse and the
Death of the Virgin Mary are works by the Pustertal master Simon von
Taisten (around 1495). The mercy seat in the vault of the round apse was
created by Nikolaus Kenntner (1452), the passion story of Jesus and the
Last Judgment on the south side by Andrä Peuerweg (mid-16th century).
Museum
Today the castle is a museum of the city of Lienz and
houses many paintings by the Lienz painter Albin Egger-Lienz. There are
always children's workshops and exhibitions (e.g. the 2000 state
exhibition, which included East Tyrol, Brixen and Trentino). The area
around the chateau with a picturesque grove around a small pond near the
gate is a popular area for walks and the starting point for many hiking
trails. The castle is open from mid-May to the end of October. In 2007
the museum received the Tyrolean Museum Prize.
Exhibitions
2008 Guizhou - China's realm of tones and colors.
2009 Menace &
Idyll. The image of man in Austria 1918-1938.
2010 Treasures from the
Puster Valley. Gothic & Baroque Part I.
2011 The way out. Gothic &
Baroque Part II.
2012 Egger-Lienz | forests | Mountain. Across the
country.[2] (three parallel exhibitions with the Kitzbühel Museum and
the Werner Berg Museum)
2013 Herman Pedit. Works 1950-2013.
2013
Franz Walchegger. Painting in the spirit of classical modernism.
2013
Fish Dishes - Fish Story.
2014 Leopold Ganzer (1929-2008). Nature and
abstraction - a symbiosis.
2014 Dolomites Domino 2.
2014 Dance of
Death. Egger-Lienz and the War. (Cooperation with the Austrian Gallery
Belvedere)
2014-2015 Spotlight. Lienz and the valley floor.
(Cooperation with the TAP - Tyrolean archive for photographic
documentation and art)
2015 Artwork Alps.
2015 Jos Pirkner. figure
and space.
2015–2016 The Threatened Paradise. Heinrich Kühn
(1866–1944) photographed in color.
2016 Architect Raimund Abraham.
Back home. (Cooperation with the AZW – Architekturzentrum Wien)
2015-2017 Albin Egger-Lienz (1868-1926). I don't paint farmers, I paint
shapes.
2015–2017 Homeland/Frontline. Lienz and the War 1914-1918.
(Cooperation with the TAP - Tyrolean archive for photographic
documentation and art)
2016-2017 look back. Museum and collection
history.
2017 Archaic – high-tech. Design: EOOS and the Bruck Castle
Collection. (Cooperation with EOOS)
2018 paint me the sky! Simon von
Taisten and his late Gothic frescoes at Bruck Castle.
Today Bruck Castle is owned by the city of Lienz. Since June 13, 1943 it is open to the public as a museum.