Residenzschloss Urach

Residenzschloss Urach stands in Bad Urach, within Germany’s Swabian Alps, as a late medieval residential palace of Württemberg. Its main building dates from around 1400.

The complex includes a gate tower, a professor’s building, a gatekeeper’s building, and later additions around the rectangular hall building. A large south tower shapes the site.

Inside, the Golden Hall presents a late Renaissance interior with panelling, gilded walls, and columns bearing Corinthian capitals. Flat ceilings and light from three sides define the room’s structure.

A water castle occupied the valley from the mid-eleventh century, serving the Counts of Urach as a city seat. Württemberg took control in 1264.

The palace later served as a residence, hunting lodge, and setting for festivities before receiving a partial Renaissance interior around 1600. Its architectural record also includes wartime occupations, seventeenth-century renovations, and the demolition of the old water castle in the late eighteenth century.

The site is wheelchair accessible. Residenzschloss Urach connects medieval residence, Renaissance decoration, and the changing political role of Urach through its surviving architecture.