Palais Thurn und Taxis

The Palais Thurn und Taxis (German: [paˈleː ˈtuːɐ̯n ʊnt ˈtaksɪs]) in Frankfurt, Germany was built from 1731 to 1739 by Robert de Cotte and commissioned by the Imperial Postmaster, Prince Anselm Franz von Thurn und Taxis (1714–1739).

The newly constructed Palais Thurn und Taxis in 2009

The building was heavily damaged in World War Two and then demolished. Today a reconstruction houses some shops.

History

In 1748 the castle was the administrative seat of the imperial post office, then operated by the Thurn und Taxis family, and from 1805 to 1813 it was the residence of the Prince Primate and Grand Duke of Frankfurt, Karl Theodor von Dalberg. After the restoration of the Free City of Frankfurt, it held the Bundestag of the German Confederation from 1816 to 1866.

In 1895 Prince Albert I von Thurn und Taxis sold the Palais to the Imperial Post. In 1905 the city of Frankfurt took over the palace and used it to house the Museum of Ethnology for the collections of the African explorer Leo Frobenius.

Demolition & reconstruction
Model of the original Palais Thurn und Taxis

During 1943 and 1944 the palace was badly damaged in the bombing of Frankfurt am Main in World War II, but much of the structure was preserved, such as some ceiling paintings and stucco. Although reconstruction was possible, it would have been too costly, and so much of the building was demolished in 1951. The remaining parts of the building were actually new buildings made from sections of the original, but with modern reinforced concrete and without the mansard roofs.

From 2004 to 2010 the palais has been reconstructed as part of the Palais Quartier development.

gollark: Oh, and you can't convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and carbon, it'd be oxygen, carbon and hydrogen.
gollark: Also, you might be able to get the carbon out as diamonds using whatever magic molecular reorganization thing you're using to do this, in which case it doesn't need to be buried and we can just use ridiculous volumes of diamond as a structural material.
gollark: *Can* you efficiently just convert carbon dioxide/water back into oxygen/carbon? I mean, the whole reason we do it the other way round is the fact that a lot of energy is released.
gollark: Or just keep them lying around, like in forests, but there are capacity limits.
gollark: I mean, plants turn carbon dioxide into... plant bits... which means you have to grow plants and then stockpile those plant bits somewhere without burning them.

See also


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.