Baden-Württemberg's palaces the state palace administration keeps

Map of 16 locations in Baden-Württemberg, Germany

When the monarchies of Baden and Württemberg ended, their residences did not go to heirs or buyers: they stayed with the state, and a public-law body, the Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Baden-Württemberg, still runs them. The record of what it holds is its own regional inventory and the list of its Schloss- and Klosterverwaltungen, which assigns each building, ruin and garden to a named administration. Read together, those lists trace three separate courts, the Electoral Palatinate on the Rhine, the margraves at Rastatt and Bruchsal, and the dukes of Württemberg, now kept on one set of books.

Places in this collection

  • Schloss Kirchheim (Teck) — A Renaissance palace built under Duke Ulrich and a well-preserved state fortress of the duchy of Württemberg, it housed the duchy's widowed…
  • Schloss Urach — Residence of the counts of Württemberg-Urach and birthplace of Eberhard I (1445 to 1496) and Duke Christoph (1515 to 1568); the town lost i…
  • Residenzschloss Mergentheim — From the 16th century until the Teutonic Order was dissolved in 1809, this Renaissance and Baroque complex was the main seat of the Order's…
  • Kloster Bebenhausen — A Cistercian abbey founded in 1190 and dissolved in 1560, later fitted out as a royal hunting lodge for Württemberg; the Edict of Restituti…
  • Schloss ob Ellwangen — A hilltop castle of about 1200, fully preserved and rebuilt into a palace in the 18th century, it served the prince-provosts of Ellwangen a…
  • Neues Schloss (Tettnang) — Begun in 1712 near Lake Constance, and credited by the state administration with work by the most celebrated artists of its day. Responsibi…
  • Neues Schloss (Meersburg) — The Land of Baden-Württemberg took the building over in 1955, and it has been in the care of the Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten since. It…
  • Schloss Rastatt — The margraves' Baroque residence, described by the state administration as the first Baroque palace on the Upper Rhine and still the domina…
  • Schloss Favorite (Rastatt) — The state administration calls this the oldest German porcelain palace and the only one to have survived almost unchanged, and describes th…
  • Schloss Mannheim — Former residence of the Electors Palatine, a Baroque three-wing complex begun in 1720 for Karl Philipp to designs by Jean Clemens Froimont.…
  • Ellwangen Palace — The state administration files this under Hohenlohe & Ellwangen, a region it describes as the far eastern edge of present-day Baden-Württem…
  • Solitude Palace — Duke Carl Eugen's most ambitious and personal building project, which the state administration rates the most elegant palace of his era and…
  • Ludwigsburg Residential Palace — The state administration calls it one of the largest Baroque buildings in Europe to survive in its original condition. It grew out of the E…
  • Bruchsal Palace — Built for the prince-bishops of Speyer, and described by the state administration as the only Prince-Bishop's residence on the Upper Rhine.…
  • Schwetzingen Palace & Gardens — The 18th-century garden design survives largely as laid out, with more than 60 statues, busts and fountains of that century on the grounds,…
  • Heidelberg Palace — The state administration groups this with Mannheim and Schwetzingen as the three residences of the Electoral Palatinate and names it first…

Related collections