Kurhaus Göggingen

The Kurhaus Göggingen stands in Augsburg’s Göggingen district. Built in 1885–86 to plans by architect Jean Keller for Hofrat Friedrich Hessing, it is the last surviving Gründerzeit theatre of glass and cast-iron. The building was designed as a winter garden, ballroom and theatre combined, inspired by English Pleasure Gardens of the 19th century. Hessing intended it to aid the mental recovery of patients from his nearby orthopaedic clinic. Technical innovations included a hydraulic stage floor, warm-air heating and electric lighting, setting new standards for the time. The theatre’s interior is a single space that can seat about 800 people. The stalls form a sunken palm garden ringed by exotic plants, while the first tier is divided into loges by flower stands. Cast-iron columns carry a stone-vaulted ceiling that rises to a dome of coloured glazing. Outside, the façade mixes late-Renaissance ornaments with baroque verandas, and the wings open into artificial park grottos. The surrounding park blends French baroque formality with English landscape gardening, moving plants from the winter garden outdoors each summer. Visitors enter through the two-storey glass-and-iron façade into a foyer lit by tinted windows. The auditorium’s palm garden stalls and tiered loges remain intact, with iron staircases and balustrades preserved. The once-grand stage machinery has been removed, yet the space still hosts concerts and readings. The park’s grottoes and winding paths invite quiet walks, while the glasshouse shelters palms and ferns year-round.