Cultural Events
CastleWiesbaden-Dotzheim
Freudenberg Castle (Wiesbaden-Dotzheim)
Schloss Freudenberg in the Hessian state capital Wiesbaden, Dotzheim district, has been a field of experience for the development of the senses and thinking since 1993.
Schloss Freudenberg is not a castle in the true sense, but was built in 1904 by architect Paul Schultze-Naumburg as a representative villa in the middle of a park. The clients were the painter James Pitcairn-Knowles (1863–1954) and Marie Eugénie Victoria Guérinet (1870–1959). The couple lived in the castle for only three years until 1908. Around 1920, the district of Essen established the "Kinderheim Taunusblick" there, which was later taken over by the city of Essen and closed in 1931. Two years later, the castle was used as a mothers' home by the Gau leadership of the NS-Frauenschaft Essen and belonged to Lebensborn e.V., to increase the birth rate of "Aryan" children, including those from extramarital relationships, through National Socialist racial hygiene and health ideology.
In 1939, the castle was sold to the Wiesbaden Army Garrison Administration. After the war, the United States Armed Forces operated an officers' casino in the castle for the nearby Camp Pieri barracks. In 1973, the US Army handed over the extremely dilapidated building to the Federal Real Estate Administration. From 1977 to 1984, the American Pentecostal Church used the building, after which the castle stood empty and fell into disrepair. In 1993, the non-profit organization Gesellschaft Natur & Kunst e.V., based on an initiative by Matthias Schenk and Beatrice Dastis Schenk, took over the castle and the park to establish the first field of experience for the development of the senses and to begin the renovation of the building, which is expected to last until 2072.
Renovation and Field of Experience+
At the beginning of the building renovation in 1994, Emil Hädler, professor at the Mainz University of Applied Sciences and expert in old building maintenance, formulated the guiding principle Renovation = Healing through Art. In the traditional renovation concept, a building's use is completely suspended during the measures or continued only under difficult conditions. In Schloss Freudenberg, however, use and renovation consciously run continuously in parallel: a constantly changing provisional arrangement is intended to open up new possibilities of perception. Meanwhile, this method of designing the field of experience of the senses in a building and green area has become an impulse for further fields of experience throughout Europe and worldwide. The renovation of the castle is financed by admission fees and donations, as well as conferences, seminars, and cultural events in the castle and park.
The development of artistic activities refers to Hugo Kükelhaus's field of experience for the development of the senses, Joseph Beuys's Social Sculpture, and Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy. The center of the cultural center is the so-called "Field of Experience of the Senses," which is equipped with over 160 stations, instruments, and experiments based on the models of Hugo Kükelhaus and developed further in-house. The association describes the project as a Gesamtkunstwerk in the sense of "Every human being an artist."
Folklore in the Garden+
The Wiesbaden Music Festival Folklore, which first took place in 1977, was moved to the castle park in the 1990s and was called Folklore im Garten there. In 2007, it was moved to the grounds of the Schlachthof cultural center.
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Source: Wikipedia · Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0
This description draws on the facts documented in the linked Wikipedia article; Wikipedia content is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Wording and editing: Mobile History.
Location: 50.0661, 8.1808