Löwenburg

Kassel

The Löwenburg is a pleasure palace built in Kassel's Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe from 1793.

Built as an artificial castle ruin, the castle stands above Wilhelmshöhe Castle in the southern part of the Bergpark and thus south of the Wilhelmshöhe Castle-Hercules visual axis at about 350 m above sea level on the eastern edge of the High Habichtswald. The Löwenburg served as a private retreat for its builder, Landgrave Wilhelm IX of Hesse-Kassel, and also became his burial place in 1821. In terms of art history, the complex is considered groundbreaking, as one of the first important neo-Gothic buildings in Germany.

History
The castle, which is modelled on a hilltop castle, was built to designs by Heinrich Christoph Jussow between 1793 and 1801, centuries after the actual construction of castles in Germany. It is an imitation of a medieval knight's castle and was deliberately built as an artificial ruin, in a romantic historicising style. Initially planned only as a ruinous tower with outbuildings, similar to the artificial ruin in Wilhelmsbad built from 1779 by the same builder, a complete castle complex was eventually created, grouped around an inner courtyard. The complex served the landgrave as a residence for himself and his mistress Karoline von Schlotheim. In 1821, the Landgrave, who was elevated to Elector Wilhelm I in 1803, was buried in the crypt under the castle chapel. From the beginning, the Löwenburg was built of Habichtswald tuff, which is not very weather-resistant, was available near the construction site and is easy to work.

Second World War and the consequences
Until 1945, the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces carried out several attacks on Kassel. The heaviest attack was on 22 October 1943. Because of the armaments industry and above all because of the dense buildings in the old town with its easily fire-catching half-timbered houses, Kassel was included early on in the list of cities for which incendiary bombing seemed particularly suitable, according to the Area Bombing Directive. The keep of the Löwenburg was largely destroyed (only the stair tower with some wall remains remained) and large parts of the complex, including the kitchen building and the connecting building, were severely damaged. Reconstruction in the post-war years was quite utilitarian and characterised more by functionality than attention to detail. In 1957, extensive reconstruction work was carried out in the ladies' building with the aim of being able to accommodate salvaged inventory from the destroyed keep. Between 2005 and 2022, a major renovation of the castle took place. Among other things, the keep was made accessible again. In July 2022, the reconstruction was completed and the castle was reopened.

RP-Group installed a central power supply system in the building imt various products from the EAQ, EAR and the KBU series.

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