Haus Witten

The construction of the castle here was started about 1480/90. Franko von Witten, the then chief magistrate, first had only a mansion and a dwelling tower built, before in the 16th and 17th century it was expanded to form a baroque four-wing structure.
At the beginning of the 19th century, entrepreneur J. F. Lohmann established a steel mill and a number of flats in the castle. In 1944/45, bombing reduced the castle to ruins, which it stayed until in 1990 the City of Witten, with financial support by the state government of NRW, started to convert it into a public cultural facility. The conversion was about the preservation of the listed ruins, attesting to earlier conversions, metamorphoses and destruction and thus the course of history.
With this objective in mind, architects Professor von Busse and Professor Klapp derived the new parts from the listed substance in a constructive manner. The modern materials of steel and glass were very suitable. They are discrete, which supports the old fabric’s effect and leaves the architectural monument’s appearance of a ruin intact. The ruin’s completion with modern parts is thus one of the city’s architectural highlights.
The ruin of the castle has now been a cultural institution since 1992 (accomodating a municipal school of music, film theatre, concerts, the college of further education’s admin and cafe)

Awards:
1997 “Prix Rhenau d´Architecture“ (Strasbourg); also 1997: BDA (Bund Deutscher Architekten; confederation of German architects) award; 1998 Europa Nostra award.

Awards:
Architekturpreis NRW 1998 (BDA NRW), Preisträger

Author: Stadt Witten, Martin Jakel / Redaktion baukunst-nrw
Last changed on 04.09.2017

Categories:
Architecture » Public Buildings » Palaces/Castles/fortifications
Architecture » Public Buildings » Cultural (cinemas, theatres, museums)