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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.