Lauterbach Castle

With the gradual consolidation of Riedesel's rule over the city of Lauterbach, the (sparingly) representative expansion of the castle began after the destructions of the Thirty Years' War, carried out by master builder August Rumpf from Hanau. The solidly built parts of a Gothic castle house, extended in the 16th century, were raised, extended differently on two sides, and expanded at the rear by a rectangular stair tower. The use of older building parts led to the lack of - and perhaps not even intended - symmetry of the facade of the now three-story, wide-set so-called Burgschloss. A balance was only achieved in the roof area. This is developed on the left and right by a narrow fourth story in partially slate-covered half-timbered construction with a high hip roof, and approximately in the middle by a two-story dormer. The facades of the Burgschloss, built of quarry stone and temporarily plastered, are opened by partially coupled rectangular windows. The building corners are carefully rusticated. Masonry joints and projections hint at the width of the original building. As architectural ornamentation, a simple, rectangular projection extending over all three stories serves towards the castle courtyard, which, slightly shifted to the right of the center, perhaps goes back to a bay window of the Gothic house. However, only the round-arched main entrance, shifted to the left of the central axis and above a wide flight of steps, is particularly elaborate in its design. It is framed by Tuscan columns on rusticated pedestals and covered by a strongly profiled broken triangular pediment, which contains a coat of arms (Riedesel and Diede zum Fürstenstein) and the year 1684; in the spandrels above the portal arch, reliefs of fruit garlands appear. The year probably marks the completion of the construction work, but also dates the contract with Fulda, in which the Vogtship of Lauterbach was finally granted to the Riedesels as a fief. During the Revolution of 1848, the Burgschloss suffered severe damage, which even led to considerations of demolition, but was repaired in the early 1890s. The interior decoration dates from this period. To the south of the Burgschloss are walls delimiting the castle area, which largely originated with an expansion of the castle courtyard towards the city in the early 19th century.