Düsseldorfer Schloss: The Former Princely Residence of Düsseldorf
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.8
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Prussia
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page15 sections
History
Düsseldorfer Schloss in Düsseldorf, Germany, was founded by the Counts of Berg as a lowland comital castle before 1260. Built on a small island where the Düssel meets the Rhine, it belonged to the political changes surrounding the Battle of Worringen in 1288, when Adolf V of Berg, John I of Brabant, and the counts of Jülich and Mark ended the authority of the Archbishop of Cologne in the region.
Medieval castle and Berg residence
The elevation of William II of Berg to the rank of Imperial Prince encouraged the planned development of Düsseldorf as a residence. By 1382, the castle contained an early administrative writing room known as a schrijfcamer, as well as a princely chapel. Further construction followed around 1384 as part of a wider plan to expand the town.
Two chapels were present by 1399. In the smaller chapel, Duke William swore an oath of fealty to King Richard II of England on 23 April 1399. The ceremony took place in the presence of the English envoy John de Palacio. A castle administrator and defender, known as a castellan or Burghgrave, is recorded at Düsseldorfer Schloss in 1435.
The castle burned for the first time in 1492, after which building activity increased. Another fire on 23 December 1510 destroyed an attempted extension and the rebuilding of the old castle. These disasters led to successive efforts to enlarge and renew the residence.
Renaissance reconstruction
Düsseldorf became the capital of the United Duchies of Jülich, Cleves, and Berg in 1521. This union placed several territories under one dynastic rule and required a residence capable of representing the enlarged political role of the city. Bertram von Zündorf directed the first stage of rebuilding. In 1549, Duke William the Rich appointed Alessandro Pasqualini, an Italian Renaissance architect from Bologna, and his involvement accelerated the transformation of the castle.
Pasqualini completed the castle tower in 1551 and gave it a Renaissance character through Tuscan columns, a dome, and a lantern topped by an Italian-style bonnet. He also constructed a three-storey loggia in the north-eastern corner of the courtyard. This new structure stood beside an older half-timbered gallery and a rectangular stair tower, combining newer Renaissance forms with elements of the earlier castle.
The residence continued to serve political and ceremonial purposes. Copperplate engravings made by Frans Hogenberg around 1585 depict its throne room, banquet hall, chapel, and columned inner courtyard. They also show the range of spaces used for court display and formal gatherings.
Diplomacy and the electoral court
In 1613, Wolfgang William, hereditary prince of Palatinate-Neuburg, and the Brandenburg elector John Sigismund met at the castle to negotiate the War of the Jülich Succession. This conflict concerned control of the territories whose ruling line had ended. The negotiations failed, and during the dispute John Sigismund slapped his opponent.
Düsseldorfer Schloss gained renewed prominence when John William II, widely known as Jan Wellem, became elector and moved his court residence to Düsseldorf. Toward the end of the seventeenth century, he modernized and enlarged the complex. The expanded court establishment included a bakehouse, brewery, stable, riding school, theatre, ballroom, and page house, providing facilities for production, transport, education, and entertainment as well as formal residence.
The castle hosted major diplomatic and dynastic occasions. Duke Philip William received King Charles II of England there in 1654. In 1697, the residence held the wedding celebration of Gian Gastone de’ Medici and Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg. Archduke Charles, later Emperor Charles VI, visited in October 1703 during the War of the Spanish Succession, when John Churchill, later the first Duke of Marlborough, was also in Düsseldorf.
Between 1709 and 1712, an independent gallery building was added for the Düsseldorf Picture Gallery. Its Renaissance and Baroque collection became internationally known and remained on display in Düsseldorf until 1805. After Jan Wellem’s death, Elector Charles Philip transferred the principal electoral residence to Heidelberg in 1718 and then to Mannheim in 1720, reducing Düsseldorf’s political importance.
Fire, decline, and nineteenth-century institutions
Elector Charles Theodore decided in 1755 to replace the deteriorating old castle, whose condition had been worsened by fire and damp. The north wing was demolished, while the remaining wings were altered. In 1780, Nicolas de Pigage built a new electoral stable complex for the residence.
During the First Coalition War, a conflict between revolutionary France and European powers opposing it, French forces under Jean-Baptiste Kléber and Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte shelled Düsseldorf on the evening of 6 October 1794 after an exchange of fire with imperial troops. The fire that followed during the night of 6 to 7 October destroyed or badly burned the residence castle, the church and convent of the Cölestine nuns, the electoral stables, and many houses belonging to local residents.
Napoleon Bonaparte and Marie Louise were expected on a state visit to Düsseldorf in November 1811. In preparation, three gallery rooms and a staircase were renovated under Adolph von Vagedes, with decorative painting by J. Petersen and Ludwig Pose. Napoleon’s Beautification Decree of 17 December 1811 ordered the restoration of the old castle and proposed that a university be installed there.
After Prussia became the legal successor to the Grand Duchy of Berg in 1815, the reorganized Düsseldorf Academy of Arts moved into the castle in 1821. Its work helped establish the internationally known Düsseldorf School of Painting. Part of the complex also housed one of the three state mints of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1817 to 1848. The mint used modern toggle presses made by Diedrich Uhlhorn.
Provincial assembly and final destruction
From 1845, the surviving sections were redeveloped for the Provincial Diet of the Rhine Province, the representative assembly of the Prussian Rhine Province, and for the Academy of Arts. Rudolf Wiegmann and Friedrich August Stüler prepared the plans, and King Frederick William IV attended the laying of the foundation stone. The first meeting of the provincial assembly in the new rooms took place in October 1851.
The rebuilt complex also hosted a provincial trade exhibition for the Rhineland and Westphalia from 15 July to 1 October 1852. During the building phase, from 1848 to 1849, a battalion staff and two infantry companies occupied the complex for several months. The former gallery building was later converted and enlarged for the Düsseldorf Royal State Library between 1866 and 1869 according to late-classical plans by Carl Albert Krüger.
A major fire of unknown origin broke out on the upper floor of the Rhine-side wing during the night of 19 to 20 March 1872. It spread through the castle, including the part used by the Provincial Diet. The gallery building survived, together with valuable holdings of the Academy’s art collection stored there, because of the efforts of the academy conservator Andreas Müller. The Academy’s painting studios and their pictures were destroyed.
After the fire, Wilhelm Lotz and Hermann Riffart prepared plans to rebuild the castle for the Academy of Arts. Other professors considered the complex unsuitable, and the academy eventually received a new building at the Sicherheitshafen in 1879. The Provincial Diet also moved to the Ständehaus on the Kaiserteich, constructed between 1876 and 1880. The remaining south wing of Düsseldorfer Schloss was demolished in 1896, leaving only the castle tower.
The former residence continued to occupy a central place in Düsseldorf’s identity as a city of residence and in the urban structure of the Old Town. In 1611, Thomas Coryat described it as the most magnificent residence he had seen in the Netherlands and noted that vaults associated with the palace extended over part of the Rhine. Heinrich Heine later connected the ruined castle and a local tradition about a headless woman in black silk with the memory of the unfortunate Jakobe of Baden.
The former castle site is now Burgplatz. Its name preserves the memory of the fortified complex, while differently coloured paving stones mark the outline of the former ground plan. The surviving tower houses the Schifffahrtsmuseum.
Remains
The surviving remains consist principally of the castle tower, while the former complex is represented at ground level by the outline of its plan in the paving of Burgplatz. The medieval castle occupied a small island at the mouth of the Düssel in a lowland, fortified setting. By the late fourteenth century, it had developed into a three-winged complex covering approximately the area of the present square. Early construction used sandstone ashlar mixed with trachyte, while later strengthening employed brick masonry.
Medieval and Renaissance structures
Castle tower
The round tower that survives today dates from the thirteenth century. A square south-eastern tower was added at the end of the fifteenth century and dominated Mühlenstraße, Kurzestraße, the market, and the castle square. In 1551, Alessandro Pasqualini completed the surviving tower, placing Tuscan columns before it and adding a Renaissance dome. A lantern crowned by an Italian-style bonnet completed the upper design.
Courtyard and chapel
Pasqualini’s work also included a three-storey loggia in the north-eastern corner of the courtyard. It contrasted with an older half-timbered gallery beside a rectangular stair tower. An entrance structure with wall pilasters articulated by rusticated ashlar formed another documented Renaissance element. The castle chapel, likewise regarded as Pasqualini’s work, had an altar wall and paneling, blind arcades, Corinthian wall pilasters, and an articulated cornice.
Baroque court complex
Rhine-side wing
The Rhine-side wing contained a large banqueting hall with windows facing the river. Its powerful beamed ceiling and enormous tapestries made it a major ceremonial interior. An image of the hall survives in the commemorative book of Dietrich Graminäus. During Jan Wellem’s modernization, the Rhine-side stair tower, loggia, and half-timbered galleries were replaced by arcades and a strictly ordered facade with three rows of windows.
Picture Gallery
The gallery building on the south side was constructed between 1709 and 1712 according to plans by Matteo Alberti, an Italian Baroque architect. It was an independent building designed to house and display the Düsseldorf Picture Gallery, rather than simply a group of rooms within the residence. Renaissance and Baroque paintings remained there until 1805. After later conversion and enlargement, the building served the Düsseldorf Royal State Library from 1866 to 1869.
Electoral stables
The electoral stables, or mews, were built in 1780 by Nicolas de Pigage. They formed part of the expanded court complex and belonged to the residence’s facilities for transport. The stables were destroyed or badly burned in the fire that followed the shelling of Düsseldorf on 6 and 7 October 1794.
Nineteenth-century alterations and surviving tower
The redevelopment begun in 1845 added or completed buildings in the Neo-Renaissance style for the Provincial Diet and Academy of Arts. The tower was altered above its upper storey with a reddish natural-stone lantern and a platform in a design associated with Frederick William IV and executed by Friedrich August Stüler. The north wing was roofed, and the completed complex contained 24 rooms.
The fire of 1872 destroyed most of the remaining castle fabric, although the gallery building and valuable Academy holdings stored there survived. The tower received only provisional repairs at first and was the sole part of the castle restored after the disaster. It was ultimately left in the form shaped by the work of Pasqualini, Wiegmann, and Stüler. Called the Round Tower at the beginning of the twentieth century, it now contains the Schifffahrtsmuseum.
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