Neuschwanstein
Edition Axel Menges (Publisher)
3rd Edition
Published in 2008
Book
Hardback
60 pages
978-3-930698-33-2 (ISBN)
Description
One and a half million visitors per year can't be wrong. For them
the royal castle at Neuschwanstein is the pinnacle of every dreamer's
architectural fairy-tale. But for the architecturally educated, for
adepts of Modernism, this stylistically crude, anachronistic monument
to a prince's whim is simply annoying. Admittedly, putting
aside all positive or negative prejudice, it is impossible not to count
this romantic recreation of a medieval castle on its breath-taking
scenic site as one of the most spectacular pioneering buildings of
European Historicism.
Neuschwanstein is an extreme: never before have the charms
of the natural surroundings and the tectonics of the landscape
been used so consciously to create an effect within the overall architectural
picture. Never have historical architectural forms been
charged with so much existential meaning as by King Ludwig II,
who believed that he could think himself back into the days of
knightly chivalry merely by building. And architecture has never
again been so frankly used as a setting intended to stage a life in
terms of theatre, in other words been so liberated from its original
functions. In withdrawing from reality, Ludwig thrust forward into
the realms of the fairy-tale, which would otherwise have remained
closed to architecture.
It would also be possible to say: just as the hierarchically structured
world of Versailles is a built symbol of the Baroque absolutist
state order, so this residential castle of Neuschwanstein, almost
inaccessible on its mountain-top, is a symbol of an isolated royal
dreamer who wanted to give meaning to his anachronistic existence
by flight into fiction and recourse to the glorious past.
Gottfried Knapp is responsible for architectural reporting as cultural
editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich. He has written
on contemporary architecture and urban development in almost all
the specialist publications in Germany. Achim Bunz studied at the
Staatliche Fachakademie für Fotodesign in Munich and has been
working as an architectural photographer for 20 years. His photographs
have been published in many periodicals and books including
the book Gebaute Träume. Die Schlösser Ludwigs II. von
Bayern by Michael Petzet published in 1995 by Hirmer Verlag in
Munich.
the royal castle at Neuschwanstein is the pinnacle of every dreamer's
architectural fairy-tale. But for the architecturally educated, for
adepts of Modernism, this stylistically crude, anachronistic monument
to a prince's whim is simply annoying. Admittedly, putting
aside all positive or negative prejudice, it is impossible not to count
this romantic recreation of a medieval castle on its breath-taking
scenic site as one of the most spectacular pioneering buildings of
European Historicism.
Neuschwanstein is an extreme: never before have the charms
of the natural surroundings and the tectonics of the landscape
been used so consciously to create an effect within the overall architectural
picture. Never have historical architectural forms been
charged with so much existential meaning as by King Ludwig II,
who believed that he could think himself back into the days of
knightly chivalry merely by building. And architecture has never
again been so frankly used as a setting intended to stage a life in
terms of theatre, in other words been so liberated from its original
functions. In withdrawing from reality, Ludwig thrust forward into
the realms of the fairy-tale, which would otherwise have remained
closed to architecture.
It would also be possible to say: just as the hierarchically structured
world of Versailles is a built symbol of the Baroque absolutist
state order, so this residential castle of Neuschwanstein, almost
inaccessible on its mountain-top, is a symbol of an isolated royal
dreamer who wanted to give meaning to his anachronistic existence
by flight into fiction and recourse to the glorious past.
Gottfried Knapp is responsible for architectural reporting as cultural
editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich. He has written
on contemporary architecture and urban development in almost all
the specialist publications in Germany. Achim Bunz studied at the
Staatliche Fachakademie für Fotodesign in Munich and has been
working as an architectural photographer for 20 years. His photographs
have been published in many periodicals and books including
the book Gebaute Träume. Die Schlösser Ludwigs II. von
Bayern by Michael Petzet published in 1995 by Hirmer Verlag in
Munich.
More details
Persons
Gottfried Knapp is responsible for architectural reporting as cultural editor of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung in Munich. He has written on contemporary architecture and urban development in almost all the specialist publications in Germany. Achim Bunz studied at the Staatliche Fachakademie fuer Fotodesign in Munich and has been working as an architectural photographer for 10 years. His photographs have been published in many periodicals and books.