The city hall is one of the major attractions in Augsburg. The city architect, Elias Holl, built the most significant secular structure of the German Renaissance between 1615 and 1620. The Golden Hall, named after its golden guilded wooden ceiling, was finished in 1624. It is one of the most imposing archetypical Wrooms in Germany and demonstrates the grandeur of the Imperial City. (Town Hall temporarily closed.)
In 1623 city architect Elias Holl began work on the hospital building The Hospice of the Holy Spirit. This Renaissance style structure is home to the Augsburg Puppet Theater, where fairy tales, plays and cabaret adaptations have been performed since 1948. The Puppet Theater Museum displays its most famous characters and also offers English language tours.
In 1521 Jakob Fugger founded the oldest still existing social settlement in the world. The 140 flats are home to 150 catholic Augsburg citizens. The residents still pay a rent of 88 cents a year for 60 square meter flats. They are also committed to pray three daily prayers for the founder and his family. The Fuggerei Museum and the WWII bomb shelter which explain the history of the Fuggerei housing settlement.
The Ottonic cathedral was built around 1000 CE on top of a Carolingian structure from which the crypt is preserved. Five Romanesque stained glass “prophets windows” from 1065 are the oldest figurative stained glass cycle in the world. In the 14th and 15th centuries a Gothic chancel and two important figural portals were added to the church. The cathedral contains hundreds of artisically crafted tombstones from 1285.
A silver trader had the Schaezler Palace built in 1770. The ball room of the Rococo palace was christened in the company of Marie Antoinette, the then future Queen of France. The Art Collections and Museums of Augsburg exhibit Baroque art, including works by Rubens and Tiepolo. Annexed to the real of the palace is the State Gallery in St. Catherine’s Church (works from Dürer, Holbein d.A,Burgkmair d.A.)
The waterworks at the Red Gate is an ensemble of three water towers, two fountain master houses and an aqueduct which had its beginnings in 1416. The waterworks were in operation until 1879. The exhibition in the small and large water towers and in the fountain master’s house describes the system of water wheel powered piston pumps which were used. The Swabian Craftsmen Museum is in the lower fountain master’s house.
Augustus fountain is a work by Hubert Gerhard. The bronze sculpture of the Augsburg’s founder has been standing on the city hall square since 1594. The figures of the rivers Lech, Wertach, SIngold and Brunnenbach are sitting at the edge of the pool. Adriaen de Vries was the sculptor commissioned to create the bronze figures for the Mercury fountain on Moritzplatz (since 1599) and on Hercules fountain 1600.
St. Anne’s was founded as a Carmelite monastery in 1321. The church’s baroque sanctuary was completed in 1749. It contains the Gold Smith’s chapel and the Fugger Mausoleum, Bavaria’s first Renaissance structure and Jakob Fugger’s burial place. In 1518 Martin Luther stayed at the monastery and his famous portrait by Lucas Cranach is shown. The Luther Steps museum outlines the history of the Reformation in Augsburg.
The late gothic Benedictine monastery church of St. Ulrich and Afra was built between 1474 and 1604. The Basilica was endowed with 5 Fugger Mausoleums and the Fugger organ. The connecting “Sermon Hall” building became the Lutheran St. Ulrich’s Church in 1710, one of the two dual denominational churches in Augsburg.
In 1886 the planned Park Theater of the Hessing Orthopedic Sanatorium was opened. The “casino with a winter garden” us a light filled iron, glass and cast iron construction and a monument of architectural engineering. The only preserved multi purpose theater that was built in the founders period. Today it is a performance venue for the Park Theater.
Furnished with its own weaving mills, spinning machines and a runway for fashion history, the State Textile and Industry Museum (tim) shows that Augsburg was an important place for the textile Industry in Europe from 1840 until the second half of the 20th century. The museum has its home in the former Augsburg Worsted Spinning Mill, one of the earliest factories established in Bavaria.
The Cistercian monastery Oberschönenfeld in the idyllic Schwarzach valley near Gessertshausen was founded in 1211. In 1803 it was dissolved and in 1928 the Abbey was restored. The district of Swabia established the Museum Oberschönenfeld in the unutilized stables of the monastery. The Swabian Gallery, the Nature Park House and the Museum of Local History are also found on the abbey’s grounds.
Ludwig II. “the severe” began contruction of the Wittelsbach castle in 1257. The Bavarian Duke founded the city in 1264. The old town has retained it’s rectangular “Wittelsbachian” streets. The Renaissance style castle, the baroque town hall as well as the fortification relics and three churches of pilgrimage are worth seeing.
In 1838 Duke Max of Bavaria acquired the Water Castle in Unterwittelsbach. His daughter, Sisi, was later the Habsburg Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. The “Sisi Castle” is one of the destination along the international “Sisi Road”. Every year the Water Castle features exhibits about the life of the beautiful Elisabeth from Wittelsbach
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