![Poppelsdorfer Schloss seen from the East](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Poppelsdorfer_Schloss_seen_from_the_East.jpg)
Poppelsdorf Palace (German: ''Poppelsdorfer Schloss'') is a
Baroque building in the Poppelsdorf district of
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...
, western
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, which is now part of the
University of Bonn
The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine ...
.
Design and construction
The design of a new structure to replace the old ruined castle of Poppelsdorf commenced in 1715 at the request of the owner,
Joseph Clemens,
Archbishop-Elector of Cologne
The Archbishop of Cologne is an archbishop governing the Archdiocese of Cologne of the Catholic Church in western North Rhine-Westphalia and is also a historical state in the Rhine holding the birthplace of Beethoven and northern Rhineland-Palati ...
, who engaged the French architect
Robert de Cotte. Clemens wanted a ''
maison de plaisance
In Renaissance and Early Modern German architecture, a ''Lustschloss'' (french: maison de plaisance, both equating in English to "pleasure castle/house") is a small country house or palace which served the private pleasure of its owner, usual ...
'' that would be near his remodeled Bonn Palace to the north. There was to be a canal between the two, following the example of the
Palace of Versailles and the
Trianon de Marbre.
[Neuman 1994, pp. 83–86.]
De Cotte himself never travelled to Bonn to inspect the site, and on 24 May 1715 Clemens wrote to him: "I received your project for my Maison de Poppelsdorf, which pleased me infinitely, and I know nothing more beautiful or better conceived, but we are now obliged to consider the site on which it must be built."
No drawing exists of the plan for De Cotte's first project, but letters and subsequent plans indicate that it was square with two axes of symmetry at right angles to one another. It consisted of four two-storey wings surrounding a circular inner court with an arcaded gallery on its circumference. Clemens considered the plan too ambitious and asked de Cotte's assistant in Bonn, Benoît de Fortier, to revise the plan, reducing three of the wings to one storey, but leaving the garden wing with two. Clemens wrote to de Cotte: "I realized that it would be quite useless to erect so large a building on that site, which is but a cannon shot from town…. For the most part my retinue returns to the city at night, and I keep near me only those who are absolutely necessary to serve me."
[Quoted and translated in Neuman 1994, p. 84.]
The extant plan shows a square entrance vestibule with 16 columns: four free-standing, and the remainder engaged with the walls. The vestibule leads to the circular gallery, on the opposite side of which is a doorway leading into the main domed salon on the garden front. To the left of the salon is the elector's apartment arranged as an
''enfilade'' of ''grande salle'', ''chambre d'audience'', ''chambre à coucher'' (bedroom), and a ''cabinet''. To the right of the salon is the ''salle à manger'' (dining room). The chapel is located in the center of the right wing, while the right front quadrant houses the kitchens and the concierge, and the left front quadrant, the stables. Minor rooms, stairs, and a loo occupy the corners between circular gallery and the main rooms in the garden side, and the corresponding spaces on the entrance side provide courtyards for the kitchens and the stables.
[
Models for this type of plan of a country house with an interior circular courtyard include the ]Villa Madama
Villa Madama is a Renaissance-style rural palace (villa) located on Via di Villa Madama #250 in Rome, Italy. Located west of the city center and a few miles north of the Vatican, and just south of the Foro Olimpico Stadium. Even though incomplete, ...
, Rome (begun c. 1516), and the Villa Farnese
The Villa Farnese, also known as Villa Caprarola, is a pentagonal mansion in the town of Caprarola in the province of Viterbo, Northern Lazio, Italy, approximately north-west of Rome. This villa should not be confused with the Palazzo Farnese a ...
, Caprarola (begun 1559).[ Work came to a halt after Clemens' death in 1723, but his nephew and heir, Archbishop of Cologne Clemens August, undertook a second campaign of construction in 1745–1746.][
]
Subsequent history
Under the Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...
n rule, in 1818 the Palace and the nearby Park became part of the University of Bonn
The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine ...
. In the same year the Park was converted to the Botanical Garden of Bonn, which today contains about 0.5 hectares of greenhouse area with eleven greenhouses and about 8.000 different plants.
In 1944 the Palace was heavily damaged by an Allied air attack. It has been rebuilt in a much simpler appearance from 1955 on.
Gallery
File:Elevation (first project) Schloss Poppelsdorf May 1715 - Neuman 1994 p86.jpg, Elevation from de Cotte's first project, May 1715
File:Plan of the rez-de-chaussée (second project) Schloss Poppelsdorf 16 Nov 1716 - Neuman 1994 p83.jpg, Plan of the ground floor from de Cotte's second project, 16 November 1716
See also
* List of Baroque residences
This is a list of Baroque architecture, Baroque palaces and Residenz, residences built in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Baroque architecture is a building style of the Baroque, Baroque era, begun in late 16th-century Italy and spread in Europe ...
References
Notes
Sources
* Neuman, Robert (1994). ''Robert de Cotte and the Perfection of Architecture in Eighteenth-Century France''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. .
External links
*
{{Authority control
Houses completed in 1746
Palaces in North Rhine-Westphalia
Buildings and structures in Bonn
Baroque architecture in North Rhine-Westphalia
Episcopal palaces in Germany