Palais Hamilton

The Palais Hamilton is a villa on Leopoldsplatz. It was built in 1808 to plans by Friedrich Weinbrenner and set new standards in urban design. Marie von Hamilton, to whom the building owes its name, later lived here. Today it is used by the Sparkasse Baden-Baden Gaggenau.

History

The villa known today as Palais Hamilton was commissioned by the country doctor Aloys Mayer and built outside the city wall in 1808 to the plans of Friedrich Weinbrenner. Until then the prevailing view had been that building plots outside the city wall were inferior, a notion rooted in the wall’s original protective function. The villa exceeded the usual dimensions of the town houses and brought about a change of thinking. It is regarded as the first prestigious building outside the city wall of Baden-Baden and can be seen as the starting point of the villa construction around the historic centre of Baden-Baden.

In 1824 the later Grand Duke Leopold acquired the estate, and in 1843 it passed into the ownership of Grand Duchess Stéphanie. Eventually it belonged to her daughter Marie, who was married to the Duke of Hamilton. She gave the villa the name “Palais Hamilton” and made it a social meeting place. From 1900 the Palais Hamilton belonged to the town. From 1911 the Baden-Baden Artists’ Marionette Theatre of Ivo Puhonny was housed in the Moorish hall of the Palais Hamilton. This theatre was dissolved during the Second World War.^[1] Another source states that the marionette theatre continued after the Second World War in Werderstraße.^[2] Until 1923 the Palais Hamilton also housed the so-called Büttenquellen-Emanatorium, which was fed by a pipeline from the Büttenquelle. In this establishment it was possible to inhale the natural and supposedly health-promoting radium radiation of the Büttenquelle. The establishment was, however, eventually closed due to a lack of visitor interest. In 1954 the building was gutted and fitted out functionally, so that only the façade remains true to the original. Today the Palais Hamilton is the seat of the Sparkasse Baden-Baden Gaggenau, where, among other things, art exhibitions are held. Beneath the building there is a small parking garage accessible to customers.

Sources

• Ulrich Coenen Von Aquae bis Baden-Baden - die Baugeschichte der Stadt und ihr Beitrag zur Entwicklung der Kurarchitektur Aachen, Mainz 2008, ISBN 3-8107-0023-1, pp. 514 ff
• Stadtführer Baden-Baden - Arbeitskreis für Stadtgeschichte der Stadt Baden-Baden e.V., 1994 p. 30

References:

1. ↑ Stadtführer Baden-Baden, see above, p. 30
2. ↑ Visitor information from 29 January 2017. Written source requested.