Neuschwanstein Castle

Neuschwanstein Castle is a 19th-century palace built on a rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Fssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany. The palace was made by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and as a homage to Richard Wagner. Contrary to common belief, Ludwig paid for the palace out of his personal fortune and extensive borrowing, not with Bavarian public funds. The palace was intended as a personal refuge for the king, but it was opened to the paying public immediately after his death in 1886. Since then over 60 million people have visited Neuschwanstein Castle. More than 1.3 million people visit annually, with up to 6,000 per day in the summer. The palace has appeared prominently in several movies and was the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle and later, similar structures.

Construction
In 1868, the ruins of the medieval twin castles were demolished completely; the remains of the old keep were blown up. The foundation stone for the Palace was laid on September 5, 1869; in 1872 its cellar was completed and in 1876, everything up to the first floor. But the Gatehouse was finished first. At the end of the year 1873 it was completed and fully furnished, allowing Ludwig to stay there and observe the further construction work. In 1884, the king could move into the new building. For about two decades the construction site was the principal employer of the region. In 1880, about 200 craftsmen were occupied at the site, not counting suppliers and other persons indirectly involved in the construction. At times when the king insisted on particularly close deadlines and urgent changes, reportedly up to 300 workers per day were active, sometimes at night by the light of oil lamps. In 1884 the king could move into the (still unfinished) Palas, and in 1885, he invited his mother Marie to Neuschwanstein on the occasion of her 60th birthday. By 1886, the external structure of the Palas (hall) was mostly

finished. In the same year, Ludwig had the first, wooden Marienbrcke over the Pllat Gorge replaced by a steel construction. Despite its size, Neuschwanstein did not have space for the royal court, but contained only the king's private lodging and servants' rooms. The court buildings served decorative, rather than residential purposes. The palace was intended to serve Ludwig II as a kind of inhabitable theatrical setting. As a temple of friendship it was also devoted to life and work of Richard Wagner, who died in 1883 before he had set foot in the building. In the end, Ludwig II only lived in the palace for a total of 172 days.

Architecture
The effect of the Neuschwanstein ensemble is highly theatrical, both externally and internally. The king's influence is apparent throughout, and he took a keen personal interest in the design and decoration. The suite of rooms within the Palas contains the Throne Room, Ludwig's suite, the Singers' Hall, and the Grotto. Throughout, the design pays homage to the German legends of Lohengrin, the Swan Knight. Hohenschwangau, where Ludwig spent much of his youth, had decorations of these sagas. These themes were taken up in the operas of Richard Wagner. Many rooms bear a border depicting the various operas written by Wagner. Many of the interior rooms remain undecorated, with only 14 rooms finished before Ludwig's death. Neuschwanstein Castle consists of several individual structures which were erected over a length of 150 metres on the top of a cliff ridge. The expand building is furnished with numerous towers, ornamental turrets, gables, balconies, pinnacles and sculptures. Unlike "real" castles, whose building stock is in most cases the result of centuries of building activity, Neuschwanstein was planned from the inception as an intentionally asymmetric building, and erected in consecutive stages. Typical attributes of a castle were included, but real fortifications the most important feature of a medieval aristocratic estate were dispensed with.

Exterior
The palace complex is entered through the symmetrical Gatehouse flanked by two stair towers. The eastward-pointing gate building is the only structure of the palace whose wall area is fashioned in high-contrast colours; the exterior walls are cased with red bricks, the court fronts with yellow limestone. The roof cornice is surrounded by pinnacles. The upper floor of the Gatehouse is surmounted by a crow-stepped gable. The passage through the Gatehouse, crowned with the royal Bavarian coat of arms, leads directly into the courtyard. The courtyard has two levels, the lower one being defined to the east by the Gatehouse and to the north by the foundations of the so-called Rectangular Tower and by the gallery building. The southern end of the courtyard is open, imparting a view of the surrounding mountain scenery. The three-nave church, never built, was intended to form the base of a 90-metre keep, the planned centrepiece of the architectural ensemble. A flight of steps at the side gives access to the upper level. The Palas(hall) is a colossal five-story structure in the shape of two huge cuboids that are connected in a flat angle and covered by two adjacent high gable roofs. The building's shape follows the course of the ridge. In its angles there are two stair towers, the northern one surmounting the palace roof by several storeys with its height of 65 metres. The entire Palas is spangled with numerous decorative chimneys and ornamental turrets, the court front with colourful frescos. The court-side gable is crowned with a copper lion, the western (outward) gable with the likeness of a knight.

Interior
Had it been completed, the palace would have had more than 200 interior rooms, including premises for guests and servants as well as for service and logistics. Ultimately, no more than about 15 rooms and halls were finished. In its lower stories the Palas accommodates administrative and servants' rooms and the rooms of today's palace administration. The king's staterooms are situated in the upper stories. The largest room of the palace by area is the Hall of the Singers, followed by the Throne Hall. Hall of the Singers has 27 metres by 10

metres, it is located in the eastern and it is designed as an amalgamation of two rooms of the Wartburg: The Hall of the Singers and the Ballroom. The Throne Hall, 20 metres by 12 metres, is situated in the west wing of the Palas. With its height of 13 metre. It occupies the third and fourth floors. Apart from the large ceremonial rooms several smaller rooms were created for use by Ludwig II. The royal lodging is on the third floor of the palace in the east wing of the Palas. It consists of eight rooms with living space and several smaller rooms. The interior decoration with mural paintings, tapestry, furniture and other handicraft generally refers to the king's favorite themes: the grail legend, the works of Wolfram von Eschenbach, and their interpretation by Richard Wagner. The eastward drawing room is adorned with themes from the Lohengrin legend. The furniture sofa, table, armchairs and seats in a northward alcove is comfortable and homelike. Next to the drawing room is a little artificial grotto that forms the passage to the study. Opposite the study follows the dining room, adorned with themes of courtly love. The king's bedroom is dominated by a huge bed adorned with carvings. Fourteen carvers worked more than four years on the bed canopy with its numerous pinnacles and on the oaken panelings. The servants' rooms in the basement of the Palas are quite scantily equipped with massive oak furniture.

FUNDING
Neuschwanstein, the symbolic medieval knight's castle, was not Ludwig II's only huge construction project. It was followed by the Linderhof Palace and the baroque palace of Herrenchiemsee, a monument to the era of absolutism. Linderhof, the smallest of the projects, was finished in 1886, and the other two remain incomplete. All three projects together drained his resources. The king paid for his construction projects by private means and from his civil list income. The construction costs of Neuschwanstein in the king's lifetime amounted to 6.2 million marks, almost twice the initial cost estimate of 3.2

million marks. As his private means were insufficient for his increasingly escalating construction projects, the king continuously opened new lines of credit.

After Ludwig's death

When Ludwig II died in 1886, Neuschwanstein was still incomplete. The king never intended to make the palace accessible to the public. But no more than six weeks after the king's death the regent Luitpold ordered the palace opened to paying visitors. The administrators of Ludwig's estate managed to balance the construction debts by 1899. When Bavaria became a republic in 1918, the government socialized the civil list. The resulting dispute with the House of Wittelsbach led to a split in 1923: Ludwig's palaces including Neuschwanstein fell to the state and are now managed by the Bavarian Palace Department, a division of the Bavarian finance ministry. The visitor numbers continued to rise, reaching 200,000 in 1939.[51] Neuschwanstein is a global symbol of the era of Romanticism. The palace served as a model for the Sleeping Beauty Castle of Disneyland and became a location for films such as Helmut Kutner's Ludwig II (1955), Luchino Visconti's Ludwig (1972) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). In 2007, it was a finalist in the widely publicized on-line selection of the New Seven Wonders of the World. The palace is not on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In 2009, a plan was discussed to make it a transnational candidate jointly with Ludwig's Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee palaces and two similar palaces in Romania: Pele Castle and Pelior Castle. Today, with 1.3 million visitors per year Neuschwanstein is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. For security reasons the palace can only be visited during a 35-minute guided tour. As of 2008, the total number of visitors was more than 60 million.