Kurfürstliche Residenz in Ehrenbreitstein

Schloss Philippsburg stood on the Rhine’s west bank below the great Ehrenbreitstein Fortress in Koblenz. Built between 1626 and 1632 for Prince-Elector Philipp Christoph von Sötern, it became the main home of the Archbishops and Prince-Electors of Trier for more than a century and a half. The architect Georg Ridinger drew the plans, while master builder Albrecht Beyer oversaw the work. The palace stretched 160 metres in seven wings around three courtyards, with stepped-roof turrets at each corner. Its design resembled Schloss Johannisburg in Aschaffenburg, another of Ridinger’s projects. The palace’s history reflects the shifting power of the Electorate of Trier. After Sötern switched sides to France during the Thirty Years’ War, imperial troops briefly took Trier and imprisoned him for a decade. Later Prince-Electors enlarged the complex: Karl Kaspar von der Leyen added a rock-cut path to the fortress, and Johann Hugo von Orsbeck built the Pagerie gatehouse. Franz Georg von Schönborn commissioned Balthasar Neumann to design the Dicasterial Building, the central administration block, while his successor added the Krummstall stables and Marstall. Today only four outworks survive: the Dicasterial Building, the Pagerie gatehouse, the Krummstall and the Marstall. These stone structures still hint at the scale of the vanished Baroque palace. A road and railway now run over its former site, but the remaining buildings belong to the Upper Middle Rhine Valley World Heritage landscape. Visitors can walk among these remnants and imagine the seven-winged residence that once crowned the riverbank.