Schloss Hernstein

Schloss Hernstein stands in the Niederösterreich village of Hernstein. A four-winged building from the 19th century, it was designed by Theophil von Hansen in the English Gothic style for Archduke Leopold Ludwig. The castle sits at the foot of a wooded slope beside a man-made pond, below the ruins of a 12th-century watchtower. Its interiors were decorated by leading history painters Christian Griepenkerl, Eduard Bitterlich, August Eisenmenger and Carl Rahl. Hansen used Hernstein as a testing ground for ideas later applied along the Vienna Ringstrasse. After 1945 the building served as headquarters for the Soviet command, then became the Hernstein International Management Institute in 1966. Visitors walk through a landscaped park with a walled pond and island. The English-style gardens include a tall ziggurat gate designed by Hansen in 1857. Inside, the two-storey halls display frescoes and Gothic Revival detailing, while modern seminar wings flank the original structure.