Rosenstein Palace

Wonderful view of the Neckar Knie and Bad Canstatt

Imposing castle above the Neckar near Bad Cannstatt.

Rosenstein Castle is a country castle in Stuttgart, which was built under King Wilhelm I from 1824 to 1829 by his court architect Giovanni Salucci in a classicist style. The castle is located in the immediate vicinity of the Wilhelma zoological-botanical garden on the eastern edge of an English landscape garden, the Rosenstein Park in the Bad Cannstatt district.

The castle, which was planned as a summer residence, was never permanently occupied. In the years 1877–1918 the castle housed the king's important collection of paintings and sculptures, from 1921 the World War II library and from 1933 also a war museum. After being severely damaged by the war in 1944, the castle was rebuilt in the 1950s. Only the four seasons frieze by Conrad Weitbrecht could be saved from the rich artistic interior.

Since 1954 the castle has been the seat of the biological collection of the State Museum for Natural History Stuttgart as the Museum Schloss Rosenstein, the palaeontological and geological collection is housed in the museum opened in 1985 at the Löwentor on the western edge of the Rosenstein Park. 1990–1992 the castle was subjected to a general renovation and adapted to the requirements of a modern exhibition business.