Křemýž Castle: A Baroque Château in Czechia
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 3.3
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Czechia
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Austrian Empire, Habsburg, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page9 sections
History
Křemýž Castle is a château in Czechia, built in the Baroque period between 1693 and 1695 at the foot of Ladenburk Hill. It replaced an earlier fortress that had been recorded in 1545 on a rise north of the village and formed the centre of the Křemýž estate.
From fortress to Baroque château
Baroness Kateřina Alžběta of Bachonhay acquired the estate in 1669. Between 1693 and 1695, she commissioned the new château and had the older fortress demolished. The estate later passed by inheritance to her niece, whose marriage to Jan Antonín Hýzrle of Chodov brought it into another aristocratic family. Ownership subsequently passed to the Věžníkové of Věžník and then to the Ledebours, who retained the château until 1945.
Nineteenth-century enlargement
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Imperial Count Klement August Ledebour-Wicheln expanded the building by adding a second floor and a Neoclassical projection to the façade. Neoclassical architecture drew on the restrained symmetry and classical orders of earlier architecture. After the middle of the century, Adolf Benno Ledebour added Neo-Gothic elements to the southwest façade, introducing forms associated with medieval Gothic building.
Institutional use and later ownership
After the Second World War, the château was used as a medical facility for pulmonary diseases until the end of the 1950s. It then became a long-term care hospital. Reconstruction took place in 1993, and the hospital closed in 1996. The property passed first to the District Office in Teplice and, in 2003, to the Office for Representation of the State in Property Affairs.
In 2005, the state office sold the complex to Liwa Investment Group, s.r.o., of Teplice. The company acquired seven buildings and more than 51,000 square metres of château park. Its owner is Mohamed Khalifa bin Yousef Al Suwaidi, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family. The château and park are now unused, closed to the public, and deteriorating. Křemýž Castle is protected as a cultural monument.
Remains
The château building
Exterior elevations
The original château was a single-storey building with a cylindrical risalit, a section of façade projecting beyond the main wall, carried on columns at ground level. Above it, the projection broadened into an onion-shaped tower topped by a lantern, a small raised structure crowning a tower and admitting light. The surviving building has two storeys. Its southwest façade carries another risalit and an external Neoclassical staircase leading to the first floor.
The ground-floor façade retains Baroque decoration, characterized by dynamic forms and rich ornament. The first and second floors are arranged with Neoclassical pilasters, shallow wall-attached elements resembling columns, whose Ionic capitals have scroll-like volutes. Cornices, or projecting horizontal mouldings, complete the upper façade treatment. The southwest elevation also preserves the Neo-Gothic additions made after the middle of the nineteenth century.
Interior spaces
On the northeast side, the ground-floor hall has a barrel vault, a continuous arched ceiling, supported by four columns. Partitions have changed the arrangement of the ground-floor rooms, while their vaulted ceilings and cove mouldings survive. A cove moulding is a concave transition between wall and ceiling that softens the angle between them.
Associated buildings and grounds
A residential building adjoins the southeast wing. Its façade facing the château uses a simplified design. The complex also included a winter garden and a Baroque riding hall. The château stands at the foot of Ladenburk Hill, while the earlier fortress occupied a higher position north of the village, preserving the distinction between the later residence and its predecessor in the site’s physical setting.
