Eremitage Bayreuth

The Hermitage in Bayreuth is a resultant from 1715 historic park with water games, which is one of the city's attractions. There are also the so-called Old Palace, the Orangery with the sun temple and other smaller buildings. The Hermitage is also officially a district of the independent city of Bayreuth.

The park is located on a hill on the eastern edge of the Bayreuth basin in the immediate vicinity of the district of St. John's. To the east and north it is the deep valley of the Red Mains limited, to the south of the district includes Eremitenhof on.

Origins and History
18th century 
By buying came Bayreuth Margrave in 1616 in the possession of a vast, near the village of St. Johannis lying, forest land with a total area of nearly 50 hectares. Since 1664 there was a zoo, a fenced woodland which the court was for hunting reserved. Already one year later started planning for a summer house.

The Hermitage under Margrave Georg Wilhelm 
As of 1715, developed under Margrave Georg Wilhelm a little summer palace and other smaller buildings (farm buildings, water tower as a reservoir for the fountains) as the center of a court hermitage. The plans came from the court architect Elias Räntz. Although already in 1719 the inauguration was celebrated, the work lasted until 1722, because of this year are still material supplies occupied.

1718 was called Parnassus applied on an artificial rock, there were statues of Apollo and the nine muses. His name should remember the eponymous mountain in Greece, which was dedicated to the god Apollo. 1720 emerged the private residence of the engineer Johann Heinrich Endrich, the 1732 Wilhelmine of Prussia received a gift, on whose name Monplaisir back.

The castle was a four-wing building with a small courtyard. In the two side wings there were twelve small rooms for "hermit" or "hermit ladies". The running transversely thereto north wing contained a magnificent hall, laterally to spacious apartments for the Marquis and Marchioness.

The Margrave couple and the court played hermit life: during the day you feel like a hermit held alone in a forest in the scattered pavilions on. Dinner was served in the castle. On the basis of this pseudo-hermit life of the court, the plant was given the name Hermitage.

Expansion under the Margrave couple Friedrich and Wilhelmine 

After Margrave Friedrich took over the affairs of state, he gave his wife Wilhelmine 1735 the Hermitage.

This was also reflected immediately to the expansion of the small castle to two side wings, the Markgrafenstrasse and Markgräfinnenflügel. Architects were initially the court architect Johann Friedrich Grael and after his death in 1740 the building inspector Johann Georg White.  There were a Japanese Cabinet, a music room and the Chinese Mirror Cabinet, where she wrote her famous memoirs, decorated. Two of the magnificent lacquer panels were a gift from her brother, Frederick the Great. On the southern part of the castle inside the cave was added, a disguised with flosses and shells space where from more than 200 jets, water can splash.

From 1737 the Lower Grotto was built by the Hofbaumeistern Johann Friedrich Grael and Joseph Saint-Pierre built, later beside the stone hermitage for the Margrave.

In between 1749 and 1753 the New Palace was built to the west of the former castle (not to be confused with the built in the city center from 1753 Neues Schloss). It consists of two curved wings, which are separated from the central part. This bears a gilded quadriga, which is guided by a torch-bearing Apollo as a symbol of the sun. Therefore, the building is usually referred to as a Sun Temple. Today The side wings form the Orangerie of the Hermitage. At the same time emerged, of arcades (so-called. Trellises) framed, the large upper pond (Upper Cave) with several groups of figures. The whole ensemble embodied the four elements.

The landscaped park is a gem of rococo and an excellent example of the horticultural culture of the 18th century. He is varied designed with a grotto, artificial ruins in the form of a ruin theater (1743), an ancient tomb, the Hermitage of the Marquises (1743-45) and a lost Hermitage for the Marchioness and a series of fountains. In anticipation of the parks of romanticism emerged many hidden corners and constantly changing views and insights.

The garden is in geometric districts with Bosketten, avenues divided and water systems. The whole is a semicircle surrounded by dense deciduous forest. Wilhelmine followed baroque ideas, by taking over traditional elements (covered walkways, water features and hedge gardens). The individual parts are free of side by side, it lacks the usual baroque symmetry axis.

19th century 
Late 18th century was the garden, already under Prussian, rule verlandschaftlicht and partly used for agriculture. In 1810 he was, after four years of French occupation, with the city of Napoleon to the Kingdom of Bavaria sold. Since Bayreuth no royal seat was more, one needed also no such Lustgarten and recovered him partly as agricultural land.

1830 was the Bavarian Duke Pius, who repeatedly summer weeks spent in the Hermitage, which still build existing Einsiedeleikapelle. Then the plant was only sporadic use, so when visiting the Bavarian King Ludwig II. At the Richard Wagner Festival in 1876.

20th century 
On 14 April 1945, the Orangerie and the Sun Temple were in the otherwise largely noncombat taking Bayreuth American troops severely damaged. [6] Also, the Old Palace and the former royal stables were damaged. The reconstruction of the Orangerie was carried out only outside, the interiors were not reconstructed.

Much of the earlier divested land was repurchased, Park lost parts were recreated. They tried the park, as he at the end of the Margrave was time to restore. So was the cascade restored on the northern slope and the channel restored garden with Bosketten in the southwest of the plant. Even the Schneckenberg received an octagonal again Pagoda.

The Old Palace is since 2005 / has been completely refurbished. The Marble Hall, the Chinese Mirror Cabinet, the Japanese lacquer rooms and more sumptuous rooms of Markgräfinnenflügels are now visible again.

Current use
The Old Castle serves museum purposes and can only be visited on a guided tour.

In the east wing of the orangery there is a café. The museum shop is starting from the 2014 season in the Old Palace of the Hermitage. The west wing is used in the summer months for art exhibitions. It can also, as the central building, the Temple of the Sun, can be rented for small and medium-sized private parties.

In the former stables you will find a restaurant and a hotel.

Since 1969, takes place regularly, the Summer Night Festival held in the park. It came in the past sometimes have problems with the weather (including cancellation due to storm risk) and thus also to deficits, which are borne by the city.

Since 1982, found during the summer months in the ruins of the theater studio stage Bayreuth instead.

Water Supply
For the waterworks in the Old Palace, in the Lower Grotto and on Parnassus and the cascade and the drinking water supply large amounts of water had to be provided. Therefore, 1718 was the first water tower built, which is still in function. Originally the water to be received from the ridge Pensen east of the valley of the Red River Main. The delivery took place in a closed pipe system from hollowed tree trunks according to the principle of the culvert. It was mostly laid underground, the crossing of the valley floor but took place in a lead pipe over a bridge.

Around 1750, a second water tower, in the course of the construction of the Upper Grotto, built. He received the water by means of a, with a water wheel on a 200-meter-long rod-driven, piston pump station from the Red Main.

Transportation
From the hamlet Dürschnitz near the downtown, the king avenue leads to the Hermitage. Margravine Wilhelmine had the street as a "silver bullet" on the occasion of the forthcoming visit of her brother of Prussia Friedrich II. Can create. [8] Not far from the junction Bayreuth-Nord of the Autobahn 9 starts Eremitagestraße that ends on the grounds of the park.

The city bus lines 302 and 303 go in the tariff association Verkehrsverbund Grossraum Nuernberg at the Hermitage. At the nearby Lohengrin Therme in the district Seulbitz there is a parking space for campers.