Stadtmuseum Bad Canstatt

Description

In the historical fabric of Bad Cannstatt, the Klösterle at Thaddäus-Troll-Platz occupies a prominent position. The half-timbered house at Marktstraße 71 lies on the edge of Cannstatt’s medieval old town, now part of Stuttgart, and displays an unusual architectural configuration: a Gothic house chapel is preserved on the upper floor.

Dendrochronological analyses date the timbers used in the construction to 1463; the completion of the house is therefore placed around 1465. In 1476 the building received an oriel, a Renaissance stucco ceiling was installed on the upper floor in 1576, and around 1580 an adjoining barn was added as an outbuilding.

There are different indications regarding its use. Land registers and tax records list various private owners; a formally registered Beguine convent is not recorded there. The traditional name Klösterle, however, suggests that the house was used by Beguines at times; in comparable cases donors often remained the formal owners even though convents lived on site. A dissolution of a possible Beguine convent is assumed to have taken place in the mid-16th century. A later owner inherited the building from his mother; she may have been a Beguine. If so, the chapel preserved on the upper floor would be a unique example of a house chapel in a Beguine house.

The construction dates, combined with the high degree of preservation, set the Klösterle apart within Stuttgart’s built heritage: as a fully preserved secular dwelling it dates back further than other completely intact residential buildings in the city. By comparison, a roof beam in a house on Brählesgasse has a felling date of 1348, but its lower structural elements were only renewed in the 18th century.

In the 20th century the exterior façade underwent alterations, and from the 1930s demolition plans existed. After demolition was again debated in the 1970s, the building was restored in the following years in accordance with monument-preservation standards; the restoration received an architectural award. Since the 1980s the ground floor has housed the wine tavern Weinstube Klösterle; since 1988 the adjacent barn has accommodated the Stadtmuseum Cannstatt. In 2013 an exhibition devoted to the house presented numerous historical documents.

Further indications suggest that several Beguine convents existed in Cannstatt, but so far only brief mentions of them have been preserved.