An Architect’s Dream, A Community’s Hope, A Developer’s Magnet, and A Nation’s Phoenix: Recycling Medieval Castles!

A castle is like a magic wand – it evokes images of powerful knights, fairytale princesses, spell-casting wizards, and medieval riches of immeasurable grandeur.    And for those castles that stand in ruins today, many are now being reconstructed, restored, recycled, and ‘reborn’ to their former glory all across the globe – for reasons as varied as their shapes and sizes.

In Poland, two businessmen brothers along with real-estate developer, Jacek Nazarko, are now rebuilding a medieval castle in the village of Bobolice in northwestern Poland in order to house a museum and attract tourists to this haunted enclave whose tunnels still connect to nearby Mirow Castle.  Originally built as a royal castle in the middle of the 14th century by King Casimir III the Great, the Lasecki brothers hope to “recapture the enchantment of time when Poland was a great European power, before centuries of occupation, warfare, and foreign rule.” Elsewhere in the south-western region of Poland, the Ortus Foundation together with architects, OP Architekten, are in the middle of a revitalization program – the building of a cultural center within the remaining walls of Chrzelice Castle.  The whole complex is to be supplied with energy coming from renewable resources and it is hoped that the village of Chrzelice and the surrounding countryside will thrive with the assemblage of new social, intellectual, and cultural activities and media technologies within its local historical confines.

In Hungary, a group of castle-enthusiasts, who call themselves the “Friends of Szadvar”, are committed to spending their weekends restoring the 12th century Castle Szadvar, located in Hungary’s Aggtelek National Park near the Slovakian border, which also happens to be one of the poorest counties in Hungary plagued by mine and factory closings.  Additional volunteers for their clean-up efforts are now being recruited thru a Youth Camp that they sponsor during the summer.  In addition to wanting to preserve this medieval site, the ‘Friends’ also wish to promote economic development in the surrounding communities by turning the site into a major tourist attraction thereby attracting new capital infusions and clean service sector businesses into the local area.

And in the village of Algerri in northeastern Spain near the Pyrennes, volunteers are working to restore their medieval castle while in southern Spain folks are busy restoring Islamic castles re-using the stone ruins of Roman masonry of the 1st – 4th centuries (technically known as spolia) that the Moorish invaders first re-used themselves to build their Muslim-fortified structures as they moved through the Iberian peninsula.  And halfway around the world in Kumamoto, Japan, restoration efforts are now almost done on Castle Udo Yagura, a project aimed at commemorating the 400th anniversary of its completion by the famous samurai, Kato Kiyomasa, back in 1607.

But not all these castle revitalization efforts are being made with impunity. In south-central Portugal, in the tiny medieval mountaintop village of Marvao, the renovation of its spectacular 13th century castle is being criticized by both residents and visitors alike for its lack of ‘authenticity’.  The installation of modern lamps, new cobblestones, concrete walkways and benches, and a steel-and-glass encased surveillance system are all being questioned.  And in Scotland, some medieval ghost-filled castles are being transformed into spooky “Horror Hotels”. In sharp contrast, however, in the South Tyrolean area of northern Italy, the renovation of beautiful Bruneck Castle, an awe-inspiring 13th century castle surrounded by the Zillertal Alps, has been carefully transformed by EM2  Architects into the Messner Mountain Museum (the fifth in a series of mountain museums) under the careful guidance of famed Reinhold Messner, a famous climber, writer, lecturer, and cultural anthropologist. As the mission of the converted castle is to highlight the art, culture, and religion of mountain people around the world, the interior is appropriately constructed with unfinished timber – a material that does justice to the architectural integrity of the castle and can be easily removed for various exhibitions.

On the whole, the recycling of medieval castles is a painstakingly serious endeavor rooted in archaeology, material sciences, and architectural history.  Perhaps the best example of this is in Treigny, France.  Deep in the forests of Burgundy, France, a team of modern-day masons under the guidance of architect, Jacques Moulin, are now in the process of constructing a 13th century medieval castle from scratch using the same materials and techniques that were used in the Middle Ages. Nails, ropes, baskets, and roof-tiles are all made on site as well as lime kilns for making mortar and the castle’s design is historically based on a popular style used by King Philip II of France.  Known as Guedelon Castle, the project has created 55 jobs and is now a tourist destination with more than 300,000 visitors per year.

Given the fact that castles the world over have such universal appeal and a wondrous ability to captivate our imagination, is it any wonder then that the green innovations of today and the economic prosperity of tomorrow might be the greatest beneficiaries yet of these recycled medieval giants?