Gottesaue Palace

The Gottesaue monastery was founded in 1094.In 1525 the monastery was plundered and destroyed. Between 1588 and 1594 Margrave Ernst Friedrich of Baden-Durlach had a pleasure house and hunting lodge built by Johannes Schoch and Paul Murer.In 1698 the castle was destroyed in the War of the Palatinate Succession and rebuilt lower.In 1735 it was devastated again by fire, after another fire it was remodeled again in 1740 and used as a farm. In 1818 it became a barracks, in 1919 a tenement block, in 1935 briefly a police school, and in 1936 a barracks again. On July 7, 1944 it was destroyed again, and part of the ruins were then blown up because of the risk of collapse.
Reconstruction began in 1977, largely in the original style, with visible incorporation of preserved wall remains and a new, impressive steel roof structure. The state of Baden-Württemberg contributed 45 million DM. The city announced a competition for ideas for the area surrounding the castle. During construction work in May 1985, the torsos of two well-preserved sandstone figures were found at a depth of around 1.20 meters. During reconstruction, a Renaissance idea was taken up: old and new were combined and a telephone, a Coke bottle and a space shuttle were integrated. The music academy moved in in 1989. In the period after that, the cavalier house Fuchsbau, the stables and other outbuildings were also prepared for use by the academy. (Source: ka.stadtwiki.net)

Originally there was a monastery here. Some time ago the site was used as a barracks. Today it is a place for music (music college). Great! You can find the whole story at Gottesauer Platz by the fountain there. Or here at Tom's 😉 As of November 2020: The two outbuildings of the castle on Wolfartsweierer Straße have been completely renovated and the former passage between the two buildings has been reopened.

Gottesaue Castle was designed by the then Strasbourg town architect Johannes Schoch (1550 - 1631) and was conceived as a "pleasure house". Since its completion, it has experienced an extremely eventful history. After initial destruction in the Palatinate War of Succession in 1689, it burned down to its outer walls in 1735. Since the Margraves of Baden-Durlach had no interest in this castle immediately after the city of Karlsruhe was founded, it was rebuilt in a reduced form with a two-storey building and three-storey towers and served over the next two centuries, first as a fruit store for the Margrave's estate, from 1818 as a barracks, later for the police, before it was destroyed in a bombing raid in May 1944.
For almost four decades, the ruins of the castle reminded us of the horrors of the war, before it was rebuilt in 1982 for the purposes of the Karlsruhe University of Music. The exterior was reconstructed in such a way that the changes experienced in its history remain visible, while the interior is a modern building for use as a modern music college, which nevertheless contains modern interpretations of allusions to Renaissance architecture.
Source and further information: karlsruhe-erleben.de/media/attraktionen/Schloss-Gottesaue#/article/b71055a9-9043-454f-9d52-87d777fb0c05