Germany · Restored
Neues Schloss Baden-Baden
The New Castle (Neues Schloss) in Baden-Baden is a late-medieval and Renaissance castle complex on the Florentinerberg that served as the residence of the Margraves of Baden-Baden. The surviving ensemble includes a three-storey main castle, several 16th-century wings (carriage house, kitchen building, archive tower), a 15th-century western gatehouse and formal gardens with a long terrace.
First raised
1370
Its prime
1670
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1670
What Neues Schloss Baden-Baden looked like in its prime.
A three-storey rectangular main castle block of light-coloured masonry with a steep hipped roof pierced by regularly spaced dormer windows; adjoining to the left a long, lower carriage-house wing with a row of tall, arched windows and a pitched roof; a compact Renaissance archive tower and kitchen block attached to the main mass; a western gatehouse providing access to an enclosed courtyard with a cavalier house; a 130-metre-long terrace to the east leading down to terraced formal gardens on the hillside.
Its story
The story of Neues Schloss Baden-Baden.
Around 1479 Margrave Christopher I converted the complex on the Florentinerberg into a residence, the successor to Hohenbaden Castle; the New Castle was the seat of the Margraves of Baden from the late 15th century, and of the Margraves of Baden-Baden from 1535. After troops of the French king Louis XIV destroyed the palace in the Nine Years' War, Margrave Louis William moved the seat of government to Rastatt, building Schloss Rastatt as his new residence.
In the 19th century it served as a summer residence for the Grand Dukes, and Grand Duke Leopold had it restored by Friedrich Theodor Fischer in 1843–47. The ensemble takes in the three-storey main castle, the Renaissance carriage house, kitchen building and archive tower, entered through a 15th-century western gatehouse, with a palace garden whose 130-metre terrace was laid out in 1670.
In 1919 the New Castle was granted to the House of Baden as private property, after the separation of house and state assets that followed the November Revolution. Sotheby's auctioned the family's collections and large parts of the inventory to great media interest in 1995, the "Margrave Auction", and in October 2003 the von Baden family sold the castle to the Kuwaiti Al-Hassawi group, which wanted to convert it into a luxury hotel.
Step inside
11 places to explore in 1670.
The record describes 11 distinct spots at Neues Schloss Baden-Baden, including 3 interiors: banqueting hall / state rooms (interior), cellar vaults and stone-iron doors (dungeons), dagobert tower pavilion and spiral staircase. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
Build Your Own Castle
Recreate Neues Schloss Baden-Baden with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1670, a photoreal reconstruction that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
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Clans who held Neues Schloss Baden-Baden.
The families that held Neues Schloss Baden-Baden for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Baden
Seat of the Margraves of Baden from c.1479 and of the Margraves of Baden-Baden from 1535; private property of the House of Baden from 1919 until sold in 2003.
From the archive
Neues Schloss Baden-Baden on paper: the measured plan and period views.
The survey plan and photographs below are the ground truth this page's reconstructions are checked against, drawn and photographed while the castle was still a working garrison. Every image is public-domain or openly licensed, with its source named.
Baden-Baden Wasserspeier Neues Schloss Baden-Baden
· State Archives of Baden-Württemberg (via Europeana)
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