Augustenborg Palace

Erected in 1660-64, the original Augustenborg Palace was a timber-framed building for the first Duke of Augustenborg, who had bought a village called Stavensbøl. The village was demolished to make room for the timber-framed Augustenborg Manor, around which the small town of Augustenborg grew. In the eighteenth century, the original manor was replaced by the current palace, which is the largest and most completely baroque palace in South Jutland.

The architectural strength of the grounds and buildings lies in their highly consistent baroque symmetry around a main axis and the rank ordering of the buildings in terms of heights and materials, from the one-storey yellow brickwork buildings with red tile roofs in the stables courtyard to the wings of the main building that gradually become higher and which are rendered and painted yellow and have blue glazed roof tiles. The three central bays of the main building are designed as ressauts that are no fewer than three storeys high. Several smaller buildings are located around the palace, as are a courtier building and the Mansion. The original court chaplain’s house dates from the late rococo period and has a ground plan similar to the ground plans of many of the buildings in the town erected in connection with the palace.

The palace is surrounded by a park, which is now laid out as a romantic garden with old oaks and beeches. For centuries the forest has been kept as a park forest; it is now mainly used for recreational purposes. A sculpture park is currently being established on the palace grounds.

The implementation of a masterplan for the renovation of the palace and regeneration of the town began in the late 1770s, but it took more than forty years to complete it. The main idea of the plan was to create a large, very symmetrical building complex designed in accordance with the baroque ideals of close contact between nature and architecture. The tree-lined Slotsallé follows a ruler-straight line up to the gate building with its characteristic bell tower. The longitudinal axis continues through the gate and across the stables and palace courtyards, through the main palace room opening to the garden and onwards into the park, where it continues as a lime walk leading to the sea.

The last duke at the palace, Christian August 2, left Augustenborg in 1848 because of his close relations with Germany. This marked the end of an era of almost two hundred years of ducal rule. Augustenborg was not reunited with Denmark until 1920.

The ducal buildings from the 1770s have highly influenced the style of buildings and building traditions on the island of Als.