Some more architectural history

The Bagno

During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Bagno Park in Burgsteinfurt played an important role in the life of this small county seat. Today, the Bagno - on which work started in 1765 to the south east of the moated castle, home to the Counts of Bentheim-Steinfurt - only displays traces of the original park layout plan. The park owes its name to a bathhouse (ital.: il bagno), which originally formed part of the park's centre. The Concert Gallery is the oldest surviving building in the Bagno. It was built during 1773/74 under the guidance of the count's head forest keeper, Johann Joest von Loen, a distant relative of the famous public servant and writer, Goethe. In front of the building, a garden axis was created together with a fountain fed by a water reservoir which, in turn, was fed from the nearby Buchenberg. The Count had his summer residence in the Chinese palace, and the immediate area was also home to the dining hall - known as the 'kiosk' - and the kitchen. Thus, the area around the Concert Gallery formed the park's main festival (and festive) arena. The building is in the tradition of French and Italian gallery structures, characterised by an extended narrow floor plan and a series of French windows arranged at regular intervals on the longer side. At the same time, the building's floor plan and decor are reminiscent of a classical gazebo design. It is rare to find the two architectural traditions coming together in this manner. The Steinfurt Concert Gallery was designed as a single-story rectangular structure. Instead of the Attica-like wall seen today, the ledge was originally surmounted by a balustrade (a pillared railing) with 12 figures and 12 urns. Each of the two long walls was broken up by 6 French windows at regular intervals, while the two shorter sides remained windowless. A short set of three stairs runs around the building, leading to the doors with their cut stone settings. The ledge displays a classical design, with an architrave, frieze, ''toothed cut" and a garland ledge. The building's corners are emphasised using imitation square stones made of plaster. For the rest, the facade seen by today's visitors is quite plain. A 1787 copperplate engraving shows a pair of Ionic columns between each of the French windows, as well as ornate stucco decoration around the ledge. However, we cannot be sure that this engraving is an accurate representation of the facade's appearance during the late 18th century. The gallery of the Grand Trianon - built for Louis XIV by Jules Hardouin-Mansart in Versailles Park during 1687/88 - provided the immediate inspiration for the exterior design of the Concert Gallery. The Grand Trianon gallery was also used for court concerts. However, the spatial design of the Steinfurt Concert Gallery departed from the Grand Trianon design, and instead was quite "modern", using forms of early French classicism, albeit still including certain Rococo elements. The pillars are decorated with dark stucco marble tablets (fake marble made using coloured plaster). Narrow rectangular mirrors were inset in these tablets. The fake marble tablets are surrounded by stucco, mainly depicting garlands of flowers and twining leafy creepers. The short sides are emphasised by means of semi-circular niches reminiscent of small grottoes, highly ornamented using artful combinations of natural materials such as shells and snails, as well as minerals and gravel. Beside the grottoes are stucco pictures, known as trophies, depicting painting and sculpting implements, garden tools and favourite musical instruments. Thus, these depictions highlight the Count's intense interest in the visual arts, landscape gardening, aquatic arts and - above all - music. They were modelled on contemporary sketches by French architects, primarily Jean Charles Delafosse who published many of his designs.

The Concert Gallery is the earliest Westphalian example of a Louis XVI interior. This school saw itself as a counterweight to the overblown, frivolous Rococo style, preferring to hark back to the clear, classic shapes of antiquity. In terms of cultural history, the building records the full flowering of musical life in a small, politically insignificant county seat at the end of the age of absolutism. Even though they were relegated to the role of onlookers outside the door, the participation of middle-class audiences in the concerts heralded the transition to the bourgeois musical culture of the 19th century.

The Concert Gallery's flowering was a brief one due to the political and social upheavals at the end of the 18th century. The Count's move to Bentheim heralded the end of the area's numerous cultural activities. Concerts were only held sporadically during the 19th century.

Even in the 19th century, regular repairs were required. As early as 1833, the balustrade - which proved extremely susceptible to damage - was replaced by the continuous roof wall which can still be seen today. By 1911, the building was in such a bad condition that sections of the stucco fell away from the ceiling. Internal and external renovations weren't carried out until the Allgemeine Bürger Schützengesellschaft leased the building; their lease ran from 1929 to 1944. However, these renovations tended to be rather unskilled. The structure fell into total disuse after 1944, and - partly due to its location - was vulnerable to decay and vandalism. From 1964 on, the Westphalian Heritage Authority retrieved the remaining sections of stucco, and started a thorough examination of the building as a whole. However, it was only in 1990 that a sample wall section was reconstructed to determine the exact restoration costs which would be required.

Renovation work finished in March 1997, with the result that the Concert Gallery was again available for top-quality concerts of an international standard. Thus, the Concert Gallery is once again what it had always been in the eyes of Steinfurt's citizens: a GRANDE GALERIE POUR LES CONCERTS.