Schloss Sitzenberg

Schloss Sitzenberg stands on a wooded hilltop above the village of Sitzenberg in Lower Austria. A long curve in the access road leads past the gatekeeper’s house to the castle’s western front. The original medieval castle had two storeys, several round towers and a fortified rampart on the east side. In the 16th century Christoph Greiss zu Wald transformed it into a Renaissance residence. A century later a clock tower rose in the north-west corner of the courtyard. The castle’s present shape dates from 1913–1924 when Gustav von Flesch-Brunningen designed a Neo-Renaissance four-wing complex. The north and south wings were extended eastward, each ending in a round tower. The new east wing received a grand façade and spacious interiors, while the courtyard gained arcades on widely projecting corbels. Minor alterations in 1950–1951 created classrooms and boarding-school rooms. Visitors approach through the gatekeeper’s house and enter a courtyard framed by arcades. The west wing’s central portal and the north-west clock tower remain from earlier centuries. The east wing’s show façade and generous interiors show the early 20th-century remodelling. The surrounding wooded hill offers long views over the Tulln district.