Ponickauhaus

Today, the Ponickauhaus is home to the exhibitions held by the Museum of West Lusatia Kamenz. It has its own turbulent history, dating back to the Middle Ages.

The Ponickauhaus has its own turbulent history, dating back to the Middle Ages.

The cellars are thought to date from the time the town was founded around 1225. The structure of the barrel vaults suggests that three town houses with cellars may have stood here in the Middle Ages; They were probably connected to each other by the low-ceilinged corridors that still exist today and rebuilt after one of the city fires in the 15th century.

The first documented record of the house dates back to 1567, when Hans von Ponickau acquired it as a dower for his wife, Barbara von Gablenz. For 100 years, it remained in the hands of the West Lusatian noble family to whom the Ponickauhaus owes its name, until it passed to the Schönberg family in 1667.

The late Baroque facade dates from the period between 1745 and 1748, when the house was owned by the Imperial Count (Reichsgrafen) of Dallwitz for three years. The ornamental front stands out thanks to its austere symmetry. The central projection framed by two pilasters combined with the corner pilasters creates in a distinctive tripartite division. The imposing ornamentation along the central axis exhibits early Rococo elements and, together with the richly decorated keystone of the basket arch doorway, refers to the owner, Johann Casimir von Dallwitz. Here his initials J, C, V, D are artfully intertwined to form a mirror monogram on a coat of arms above which a crown hovers as a symbol of his rank as count.

The next owners of the Ponickauhaus were Count Johann Heinrich von Geyersberg and, in 1763, Ernst Gottlieb von Jeschky. At the beginning of the 19th century, it passed into the hands of the middle classes.

The last major town fire in 1842 spared the area around Zwingerstrasse, with the result that the historic complex comprising the Malzhaus, Ponickauhaus and Pichschuppen escaped unscathed.

For 100 years, the Ponickauhaus was owned by various textile manufacturers until it was acquired by the Linke brothers in 1910, who built the massive annex facing Zwingerstrasse as a spinning room.

When the brothers declared bankruptcy in 1933, the house was transferred to Dresdner Bank. After the war, it was expropriated and used as a residential building from 1951 to 1977. The last family left the Ponickauhaus in 1977.