Schloss Hohenheim: A Rococo Palace and Manor Estate in Stuttgart
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Duchy of Württemberg, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page10 sections
History
Schloss Hohenheim is a Rococo palace and manor estate in Stuttgart, Germany, transformed from 1772 by Charles Eugene, Duke of Württemberg, into his principal residence and an extensive landscaped estate. The site remained the main ducal residence until 1797 and became the duke’s official summer residence in 1776.
Medieval and early modern estate
Hohenheim was first recorded around 1100, when Egilof von Hohenheim donated land to Hirsau Abbey. The earlier estate included buildings belonging to the von Hohenheim family, and the original castle was a fief of Württemberg by the twelfth century. The family sold the castle in 1406, and the estate passed to the Esslingen hospital in 1432.
Immanuel von Garb acquired Hohenheim in 1676, and the estate was known for a time as Garbenhof. After Garb’s granddaughter died without heirs, ownership passed to Charles Eugene in 1768.
Charles Eugene’s residence
Beginning in 1772, Charles Eugene developed Hohenheim into a Rococo manor, an eighteenth-century style known for light, ornamental, and often asymmetrical forms. The first building phase produced a small moated castle, while later work created a larger residence with side wings and extensive gardens. Charles Eugene commissioned an English village in 1776, made up of more than 60 miniature Rococo buildings at one-quarter scale. Some were later moved to Ludwigsburg, including a Neo-Gothic chapel.
In 1778, the duke ordered rare foreign plants to be planted at Hohenheim. From 1782 he commissioned a large residential palace for Franziska von Hohenheim, his future wife and the intended recipient of the rebuilt residence. Construction stopped unfinished when Charles Eugene died at Hohenheim in 1793.
From ducal estate to educational institution
Charles Eugene’s brother, Duke Frederick II Eugene, died at Hohenheim in 1797. The estate was then leased to tenants, while the manor and gardens came under Stuttgart’s administration and gradually declined. Hohenheim was used as a military hospital in 1814.
In 1818, King Wilhelm I of Württemberg and his wife Catherine established an Agricultural Educational, Testing, and Model Institution at Hohenheim. The institution occupied a separate ancillary building at the castle, and agricultural and horticultural use continued across the estate. The Paracelsus School, founded in 1829 as a private one-class school for the children of the institution’s professors and officials, was later housed in the east wing. It moved out after a new building was completed in 1966. The school’s name referred to Paracelsus, the physician, alchemist, and humanist natural philosopher from the earlier von Hohenheim family.
During the Second World War, individual castle wings were destroyed and later rebuilt, at least externally. Modernization in the 1970s removed the Rococo stucco, which was reconstructed during the 1990s. Large parts of the castle and grounds are now used by the University of Hohenheim, while the estate also contains the State School of Horticulture and Agriculture and the Baden-Württemberg Economic Archive.
Remains
Schloss Hohenheim survives as a Rococo palace and manor estate surrounded by the Hohenheim Gardens. Reinhard Heinrich Ferdinand Fischer was its architect. The complex developed from the small moated castle of the 1772 building phase into a larger arrangement of palace buildings, side wings, ancillary structures, and gardens. The residential palace begun in 1782 was extensive but remains unfinished, while the Rococo stucco reconstructed in the 1990s again covers the castle’s exterior.
Palace complex
The side wings were built from 1772 onward and form part of the expanded manor estate. A riding house, known as the Reithaus, dates to 1795. War damage affected individual wings, which were later rebuilt at least externally. The east wing formerly housed the Paracelsus School, linking the surviving building fabric with Hohenheim’s later educational history.
Gardens and miniature buildings
The Hohenheim Gardens contain surviving elements of the estate’s planned landscape, including the Exotic Garden. Rare foreign plants were planted there in 1778, and some remain visible.
English village
Three structures from the former English village remain in the Exotic Garden of the State Arboretum. They are the Roman Inn, the Three Pillars of the Thundering Jupiter, and the Playhouse. The buildings were constructed at a scale of 1:4, meaning that each was made at one-quarter of the corresponding full-size dimensions. The garden complex also included pillars depicting the Roman god Jupiter.
Playhouse
The Playhouse is now used by the University of Hohenheim as a museum on the history of the university.
Ancillary buildings
The Kavaliersbau is a surviving ancillary building associated with the castle complex. It was partly converted into a university canteen in 1918 and became a restaurant in 1985. The restaurant is known as the Speisemeisterei.
