Pitzelstätten Castle

Pitzelstätten Castle is a former castle complex in the Wölfnitz district of Klagenfurt, converted into a castle in the 16th century. Pitzelstätten was acquired by the Austrian state in 1950 and has since been used as an agricultural training center. Today, the castle, supplemented by several school buildings, is the seat of the state Higher School for Agriculture and Forestry (HLFS).

Pitzelstätten was originally a castle, its name likely deriving from the name of its builder. After its construction, it was a knightly fief of the Duke of Carinthia, as indicated by the oldest known documentary mention from 1311, in which Henry of Carinthia granted his revenues from Petzelsteten to a Walter von Gutenstein.

In the 16th century, this castle was converted into a palace. The farm building is marked with the year 1529, while the manor house was built in the second half of the 16th century. The branch of the noble Dietrichsteiner family, based in Carniola, had the noble seat "magnificently adorned and built" according to the chronicler Gothard Christalnick. Soon after, Pitzelstätten was pledged to the mining family Putz von Kirchheimeck. From the mid-17th century, Pitzelstätten frequently changed owners until it was acquired by the Austrian state in 1950.

The manor house received its current late Baroque facade around 1740. It was restored in 1955 and 1978.

The estate is currently used as an agricultural training center. Initially as a training center for Austrian farm women, which was renamed "Higher Federal Institute for Agricultural Women's Professions" twelve years later, from 1988 "Higher Federal Institute for Agriculture and Home Economics" and since 1995/96 as "Higher Federal Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition Economics". Due to its use as a school, several additional buildings were constructed around the castle complex between 1952 and 1955.