Tours · Saarbrücken · castle
Saarbrücker Schloss & Schlossplatz
A baroque palace with a startling glass-and-steel heart, presiding over a broad square built above centuries of hidden cellars, casemates, and grim wartime secrets.
About this place
Standing on the left bank of the Saar in the district of Alt-Saarbrücken, the Saarbrücker Schloss is the centrepiece of the harmonious cityscape that court architect Friedrich Joachim Stengel laid out between 1738 and 1748 for Prince Wilhelm Heinrich of Nassau-Saarbrücken. The site has been fortified since at least the year 999, when chronicles record an imperial Castellum Sarabrucca, and beneath the baroque wings survive the vaulted cellars of the earlier medieval and Renaissance castles. War, fire and revolution repeatedly scarred the building, and in 1989 the architect Gottfried Böhm crowned its long recovery with a bold central pavilion of glass and steel that slots between the historic wings while keeping their exact dimensions. Today the Schloss serves as the seat of the Regionalverband Saarbrücken, while the Historical Museum Saar guards its most haunting spaces underground.
Key facts
- 999 year — A castle on this site, the imperial Castellum Sarabrucca, was first documented in the year 999
- 1748 year — Stengel completed the baroque palace for Prince Wilhelm Heinrich after a decade of building
- 5 cells — Former Gestapo cells lie in the cellar; one was rediscovered by chance in 1975
📍 Schloßplatz 1 - 15, 66119, Saarbrücken