In its present-day appearance, Hohenzollern Castle is a characteristic example of historical architecture with a strong late-romantic influence. Its architect, Friedrich August Stüler, who had been trained in every facet of his trade, was inspired particularly by late-gothic buildings in Germany as well as in Britain, France and Italy in drawing up his plans. In this way, his facades and the shapes of his towers show elements culled from the Loire chateaux as well as influences from the “gothic revival” in Britain, whereas the design of the main stairway into the building at the top end of the courtyard has clearly borrowed from the palazzi in northern Italy, which Stüler had seen at first hand.
With its open design of ceiling, the Ancestral Hall (entrance hall), which is as high as two floors in the rest of the building, is very reminiscent of the halls often encountered in the residences of the landed gentry in Britain. As far as the adjacent Banqueting Hall (Count’s Hall) is concerned, Stüler himself let it be known that his plans had been inspired by both the lower chapel of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris and the chapel in Karlštejn (Karlstein) Castle near Prague, which explains why the atmosphere in the hall is very much like that of a place of worship, especially in the flickering light of candles, which are still lit on special occasions today. An alcove, known as the Emperors’ Hall (or Emperors’ Tower), which juts out from the Banqueting Hall, has a slender central pillar, around which are the console-mounted statutes of those rulers of the Holy Roman Empire who were close to the Hohenzollerns. The hall shows many of the characteristic features of the summer banqueting hall in Malbork (Marienburg) Castle in East Prussia, on which it was modelled.
Further along, the reception rooms and private quarters, with their dark oak panelling and their wall paintings in strong colours, exude a tasteful homeliness combined with a subdued expression of splendour, corresponding to the idealising way in which the late 19th century looked back on the period of the late middle ages. Comparable interiors were also created elsewhere for the Prussian royal family at about the same time, for instance in the palaces of Babelsberg near Potsdam and Stolzenfels near Koblenz (Coblence). The King’s Drawing Room, which is also known as the Blue Parlour or Blue Saloon”, in particular, demonstrates many of the characteristic features of the time, with its parquet floor composed of five different types of wood, the gold-coloured stencilled wall paintings and the blue upholstered seats. In the neighbouring reception room, the ceiling decoration incorporates a motif taken directly from Heilsbronn Abbey in Franconia, which the Hohenzollerns used as the family burial place for many centuries.
Hohenzollern Castle: interior view of the Blue Parlour.
The Chapel of St. Michael, parts of which have survived from the 15th century, had a vestibule added to it when Hohenzollern Castle was rebuilt and it was also redecorated to satisfy the taste of the times. In doing so, valuable 13th-century stained-glass work from the dissolved Dominican convent in Stetten, near Hechingen, was incorporated in it. In the course of the 20th century, conversion work was carried out on the chapel on several occasions. Its appearance today is again very close to what it must have been originally.
In building the Protestant Christ’s Chapel, which was a personal wish of Friedrich Wilhelm IV and also financed privately by him, Stüler again took the Sainte Chapelle in Paris as his model – on this occasion the upper chapel – as well as the western choir of Naumburg Cathedral. Hohenzollern Castle as a whole is the product of numerous international influences, without being a copy of one specific model. The real attraction of its architecture, which does not claim to be a realistic replica of a fortified medieval castle, lies in the unconstrained blending of individual elements. What it does represent, however, is the romantic nostalgia for the idealised middle ages, which, combined with defences of a modern standard, resulted in a new oneness, whose suggestive powers appear to have remained undiminished right up to the present.