Princely Residence

The history of Schloss Eggenberg

Eggenberg Palace is a unique synthesis of the arts dating back to the early Baroque period where architecture and design combine to create a complex symbolist representation of the universe, the cosmos of an educated statesman. The residence of Imperial Governor Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg is political architecture established to express the powerful legitimation of the rule of a family.

Image Credits

Family history

The history of the Eggenberg family is equally as unusual as their residence.

Gothic Eggenberg

In 1625 Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg selected the exact same place chosen as the site of the family seat by his great-grandfather, one and a half centuries earlier for the construction of the new residence.

Building the house

The rise of Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg to become a European statesman necessitated the generous conversion of the old family seat, to a princely residence with an appropriately lavish and prestigious edifice.

Programme

In its entirety, the palace is a mathematically harmonious cosmos, an architectural mirror image of the universe in which its scholarly builder and owner expressed his conception of a harmonious world order in an era of chaos and dissolution.

Guests and Feasts

The most glorious residence in Styria took centre stage in Europe many times over the course of history. Here provincial history came face to face with world history.