A large scaffolding has recently covered part of the Haut-Koenigsbourg castle. It will remain in place for more than a year and aims to allow the installation of a restaurant and seminar rooms.
It is a massive scaffolding, not very aesthetic but essential, which has recently covered part of the Alsatian castle of Haut-Koenigsbourg (Bas-Rhin).
This project aims to install a restaurant with around 80 seats and a seminar room within the building, to diversify the activities offered there.
The scaffolding and roof which protect the bastion should remain in place for 14 months, while the roof and covering are rebuilt.
“Maintain a quality welcome for all our visitors”
Main challenge: that the work has a minimum impact on visitors to a castle which is only closed three days a year and which welcomes more than 50,000 people each year.
“It’s a little puzzle game between visitors and businesses to be able to work together in the same spaces,” explains Sandrine Bernon, head of the technical service and conservation of built heritage within the European Community of Alsace.
“It’s really a real challenge to be able to maintain a quality welcome for all our visitors and at the same time to have working conditions that are compatible, for companies, to carry out our work.”
On the site, we can observe a mixture between the parts from the medieval period and those which were added or modified during the reconstruction of the building at the beginning of the 20th century.
“The objective is to restore an original state: 1908, the work of Bodo Ebhardt (the architect of the restoration, Editor’s note), with the same assembly plans and the same tile models as what he had imagined,” explains Sandrine Bernon.
Thinking of a new economic model
At BFM Alsace, the Alsace advisor in charge of fortified castles Nathalie Kaltenbach states that the idea is to think of “an economic model to be put in place, hence this catering offer which could be open in the evening, hence the rental of these rooms too.”
Calling for “reasoning differently” in relation to the use of the castle, not only as a tourist attraction, the advisor explains that the place “remains the property of a public community, we must find a return on investment”.
Once this work is completed, the next project, still under discussion, could concern access to the site and in particular the question of parking lots, which regularly find themselves saturated.
Matthieu Chanvillard with Glenn Gillet
