Scheibenhardt Palace

Hofgut Scheibenhardt is a former hunting lodge on the south-west edge of Karlsruhe. It stands as a three-storey building with a central hall and broad steps down to a garden. A low circular rampart and moat still surround the site, built during the War of the Spanish Succession. The lodge first appears in records from 1150 and passed to the Margraves of Baden in 1501. The lodge was enlarged between 1698 and 1714 under Margravine Franziska Sibylla Augusta. Architects Domenico Egidio Rossi, Johann Michael Ludwig Rohrer and Franz Ignaz Krohmer worked on the expansion. In 1754 Margrave Ludwig Georg had the central hall redecorated with painted wallpaper of native and foreign birds by court painter Heinrich Lihl. Today the building houses studios for the State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe. Outside, a golf course occupies the surrounding grounds. The garden steps and painted hall remain the most visible reminders of its 18th-century grandeur.