New Castle (Neues Schloss) (Bayreuth)

 

 

Ludwigstrasse 21

Tel. (0921) 759 6921

Open: Apr- Sep: 9am- 6pm daily

Oct- Mar: 10am- 4pm daily

Neues Schloss or New Castle was commissioned by Margravine Wilhelmine ad constructed by Joseph Saint- Pierre. Italian wing was added in 1759. Much of Rococo and Baroque decorations were preserved despite German turbulent past.

 

Building history

Main building

The building was built during the reign of the margrave couple Friedrich III. and Wilhelmine of Prussia. Since the construction of the opera house and the New Palace in the Hermitage had already cost a lot of money, the court architect Joseph Saint-Pierre was faced with the thankless task of building a new residence as quickly as possible and with the most economical means. Presumably, the proximity of the Hofgarten was the decisive factor in choosing the site on the "Rennbahn", with the disadvantage that five existing buildings there - including the half-finished building of the Reformed Church - had to be included in the planning.

Several existing buildings or buildings under construction were therefore integrated into the structure of the palace. The central wing with the entrance, staircase and ballroom was created by converting the shell of the reformed church. The resulting oddities in the building can be seen above all in the seemingly bricked-up entrances and the partially shifted roof constructions (only visible from the park). Wilhelmine took a very large part in the planning of the New Castle, which can be gathered from the lively correspondence with her brother Frederick II of Prussia. However, he is said not to have had a high opinion of the building. Wilhelmine died in the year of completion in 1758.

Along with the other buildings of the margrave couple, the New Palace is an example of the so-called Bayreuth Rococo style. Although the size and charisma of the New Palace cannot keep up with the Würzburg Residence, for example, it is one of the major works of German architecture of the 18th century. Wilhelmine's capricious penchant for breaking through the strict court hierarchy of the apartments and dissolving them into a flight of island-like chambers found expression in the confusing grouping of rooms in the north wing. She herself designed, among other things, the shards of mirrors and the early music room.

The rooms have been remarkably preserved in their original condition, such as the stucco work, wall paneling, parquet flooring, doors, etc.; the furnishings and paintings are partly original and partly put together later. Highlights are the lavish ballroom, which is furnished with the finest gold stucco and a sovereign pilaster structure, and the so-called Palm Room (possibly a meeting room of the Freemason's lodge) in the master wing of the castle. In the shards of mirrors cabinet, instead of symmetrical mirrors, irregularly shaped mirror pieces were attached to the ceiling and walls. The walls of the so-called trellis rooms convey the impression of trellis scaffolding with very naturalistic plants through raised stucco. The music room contains portraits of the actors, singers and instrumentalists who worked at court. The picture program in the apartments of the margrave couple bears witness to the delicate diplomatic balancing act of the Franconian Hohenzollerns in the wars of the Prussian king Frederick II against Maria Theresa and Franz I Stephan, during which the margrave managed to maintain neutrality and avoid war entanglements: During Wilhelmine's antechamber is furnished with portraits of her Prussian family circle, a picture of the Habsburg-Lorraine imperial couple hangs in the Margrave's antechamber.

 

Italian construction

The "Italian Building" was erected after 1759 for the Margrave's second wife, Sophie Caroline Marie von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, as a detached building south of the palace and only later was structurally linked to the New Palace by a connecting wing. The architect was Rudolf Heinrich Richter, who, unlike Saint-Pierre, allowed the magnificent forms of the interior decoration created by Giovanni Battista Pedrozzi to overflow onto the exterior walls. The young Carl von Gontard managed to unite the two fundamentally different structures by means of a discreetly protruding connecting link with a round balcony.

In the early 1990s, the facades of the Italian building were renovated and the courtyard area redesigned.

 

Kitchen construction

To the north of the main building, on the other side of the Glasenappweg, is the former kitchen building, a detached two-story house with a hipped roof. From 1867 to 1908 the higher girls' school was housed there, later the municipal auxiliary school. When it was founded on October 1, 1920, the municipal commercial school moved into the building that the Bavarian crown estate administration had given it to it. Although the location was only approved as a temporary measure, the business school remained until 1938. Today, a shopping arcade leads through the building to Richard-Wagner-Strasse.

 

More buildings

After the theater stage in the large hall of the Old Castle fell victim to the flames, the "Comedy House" was built at the same time as the New Castle. In contrast to the already completed Margravial Opera House, it was built in the immediate vicinity of the New Palace on the edge of the Hofgarten. For the sandstone facade, parts of the unfinished Reformed Church were used, the shell of which had to make way for the New Palace. A wooden connecting passage allowed visitors to walk from the palace to the performances without getting their feet wet, even when it was raining.

The theater opened on January 24, 1754, the birthday of Wilhelmine's brother Friedrich II. After just eight years, it was replaced by a small theater integrated into the margravial riding hall. The Komödienhaus, which was probably mostly half-timbered, was demolished again because of the risk of fire. The stone facade with two gates on Ludwigstrasse was preserved. One of the gates now provides access to the backyard of the "stork house", the other one leads to the courtyard garden. There is a window on each side of this gate, the eastern one of which has since been an empty opening.

 

Later Residents

In 1792, Friedrich Eugen von Württemberg was appointed Governor-General of Ansbach-Bayreuth by Friedrich Wilhelm II. In November of that year, the future duke moved into the New Palace with his family and “rather numerous households”. After being appointed field marshal by the Prussian king on May 6, 1895, he left the city in the same month; His wife Friederike Dorothea Sophia, who had meanwhile acquired Fantaisie Castle in nearby Donndorf, followed him on June 9th.

In 1799 Heinrich von Gagern was born in the northern transverse wing of the palace. In 1848 he became President of the first German National Assembly in Frankfurt's Paulskirche in Frankfurt. His father was a privy councilor to the Prince of Nassau-Weilburg, who lived in asylum with his court in Bayreuth from 1796 to 1800 at the invitation of the Prussian king.

The later Bavarian King Maximilian I Joseph, Elector Maximilian IV of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, lived with his family in the right wing of the palace from September 11, 1800 to April 12, 1801 with the consent of the Prussian king. When the French occupied Munich in 1800, the royal family went into exile. She only returned to Munich after the Peace of Lunéville and the withdrawal of the French from Bavaria.

The Prussian royal couple Friedrich Wilhelm III. and Luise von Mecklenburg-Strelitz lived in the New Castle in June 1799 and during another visit to Bayreuth in 1805.

Napoleon Bonaparte spent the night of May 15/16, 1812 in the New Castle. "Ce maudit château!" . Corresponding utensils such as chains, rattles and a white robe were later found in the estate of the castellan. This event is mentioned by Theodor Fontane in the novel Effi Briest, who, however, relocated the incident to a palace in the Hermitage.

During the First World War, the New Palace was used as a military hospital. The Bavarian Queen Marie Therese visited the wounded there in July 1915.

 

Museums and exhibitions

Margravial State Rooms
A branch gallery of the Bavarian State Painting Collections has been housed in three rooms on the ground floor of the south wing - they were already used as a picture gallery in the 18th century - after extensive renovation in August 2007. It contains 80 works of Dutch and German painting from the late 17th and 18th centuries. One of the three rooms is dedicated to the Antwerp-born Munich court painter Peter Jakob Horemans.
Archaeological Museum of the Historical Association for Upper Franconia in parts of the ground floor and upper floor of the Italian building
Gallant Miniatures Collection (Loer Collection)
Museum "The Bayreuth of Wilhelmine" (free entry)
Collection of Bayreuth faience (free entry)

On the initiative of Eva Wagner-Pasquier, an exhibition with illustrations by Salvador Dalí for Richard Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde was opened in the New Palace in July 1969. “I only know three geniuses: Salvador Dalí, Richard Wagner and – I forgot the third” Dalí once said.

 

Courtyard garden

The Hofgarten lies to the east of the New Palace. As early as 1580 there was a kitchen garden there, which was later converted into a pleasure garden.

The so-called Mailbahn was laid out in 1679, a straight avenue of oak trees running in an east-west direction. It formed the garden's axis of symmetry and began on the west side with a magnificent gate, which was demolished in 1744 for the planned construction of the Reformed Church. As land to the north of this avenue has been separated several times over the centuries, the Mailbahn is almost at the northern edge of the park.

After the New Palace was built, the park was given an L-shaped decorative canal with two islands as the new main axis. The larger of the islands in the bend in the canal was initially octagonal and axisymmetric. Under Margrave Karl Alexander, it was given its current round shape and access via a bridge. The smaller island located in the axis of the longer leg is now called "Swan Island".

Inspired by the Neptune Fountain of her brother Friedrich II in the Potsdam Lustgarten, Wilhelmine commissioned a corresponding group of figures from the sculptor brothers Johann David Räntz and Lorenz Wilhelm Räntz for a fountain. The newly created canal was intended to stage the figures that were supposed to represent Neptune's triumphal procession. When the Margravine died in October 1758, 31 of the 32 sculptures were completed. Her husband Friedrich did not pursue the project any further, some of the figures - including Neptune - were later taken to the Fantaisie Palace Park. Above all, a fountain remained in the courtyard garden, in the middle of which Neptune's wife Amphitrite is enthroned lonely.

The ornamental canal runs mainly south-east to north-west parallel to the main avenue. The shorter section of the L-shaped canal is a dead arm towards the southwest that hooked up until the 1970s. A third island was created there when it was rebuilt. It gets its water from the canal system of the Tappert and is identical to it after the parallel branches have been omitted. Ice skating on the Hofgarten Canal was already very popular in the 19th century. Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt also skated there in winter. The canal is flanked by two narrower avenues. There were bosquets between the canal and the avenues and in front of the Italianate building.

At the end of the 18th century, by order of Margrave Karl Alexander, the park was converted into an "English-style" park with free planting. The baroque garden elements, which required particularly extensive care, were removed and the paths were partly laid out to be winding. In 1795, in honor of Queen Luise, a small round temple, a so-called monopteros, was erected on the southern edge with the sun temple. On the evening of June 12 of that year, a big festival was organized for the royal couple in the courtyard garden, to which everyone was welcome with free entry. 6000 lamps illuminated the park and a large fireworks display was set off.

The courtyard garden has been open to the public since 1790. The park currently covers around 13 hectares. Part of the baroque garden design, especially around the castle, has been restored. The only adjacent building on the Mailbahn can only be reached from the Hofgarten, the German Masonic Museum, which opened in 1902 and has the address Im Hofgarten 1.