Kurhaus Wiesbaden

The old Kurhaus stood at the end of a new promenade just outside Wiesbaden’s city walls, built in 1810 to house concerts, balls and the spa’s gaming rooms. Its architect, Christian Zais, planned a long rectangular block with a grand portico facing the garden and a vast assembly hall inside. The city laid out the wide Wilhelmstraße to link the building with the main gates, while a landscaped garden and pond were added behind. The Kurhaus became the social centre of a spa that grew from 4 000 to 40 000 visitors a year by the late 19th century. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe admired its great hall and the new streets after his visit in 1814. Fyodor Dostoevsky gambled in the gaming rooms and later used the experience for his novel The Gambler. By 1904 the building was too small and was demolished to make way for the present Kurhaus, though its original columns survive in the park and a crystal chandelier hangs in Idstein’s Unionskirche. Visitors today walk along Wilhelmstraße to the Kurhaus’s portico columns and see the reconstructed hall inside the modern building. The garden behind, once a pond, is now the Kurpark, while the former bowling green in front holds the Kurhauskolonnade with its shops. The site still carries the inscription FONTIBUS MATTIACIS MDCCCX above the portico, marking the springs that drew Europe’s 19th-century visitors.