The Rococo pavilion – an architectural folly in the ‘Rocaille’ style

The “Losthaus”

The pleasure pavilion, locally called “Losthaus”, is built in the former abbey’s orchard in 1765. It marks the end of the abbey’s reconstruction campaign, initiated in 1727.

The complex building structure, inserted into the garden’s enclosure wall, is shaped on an irregular pentagonal plan. On the ground level it contains a cool garden room, and it offers a room with panoramic views on the first floor. The pavilion culminates in a Mansard roof.

In fact, it occupies the very site of a previous building which is already documented by the 16^th century. The southern façade of the pavilion proudly displays the coat of arms of the abbey and of Abbot Michael Hormann (1751-1775). It is aligned with the corner projection of the abbey’s main building, containing the abbot’s quarters.

 

The pavilion’s architecture

Paul Mungenast, the master builder of the abbey, most likely constructed the extravagant pavilion. Its design is commonly attributed to Johannes Seiz from Trier. The vaulted room is pierced with arched doorways, opening the pavilion’s ground level onto the garden in the manner of a ‘sala terrena’. The vaulted ceiling of the cool room was originally decorated with frescoes. The interior walls are adorned with blind niches and an alcove recess, which was likely intended to accommodate a wall fountain and a small water basin.    

The first-floor room, accessible via an elegant exterior staircase, offers a panoramic view of the garden and the river landscape of the Sûre. Five statues occupy the exterior corners of the pavilion. They probably represent a cycle of the “Four Parts of the Day”, and Priapus, the ancient tutelary god of gardens.

 

The military casino pavilion

Between 1845 and 1867 the building is used as a place of entertainment by the officers of the “hunter battalion”, lodged in the eastern part of the former abbey, - hence its name “military casino pavilion”. By the end of the century the disused pavilion, which Edouard André calls the “pearl of the entire abbey” in 1900, is in urgent need of repair. Work is carried out on the roof, floors and windows around the same time.

At the end of the second World War the pavilion is most badly damaged. It is subsequently rebuilt. The last conservation and restoration campaign dates from 2016.

 

 

View of the former Abbey of Echternach (detail), c. 1800

Postcard, c. 1890

Photograph, c. 1945

Photographie, vers 1947-48

Photographs of architectural elements of the pavilion's facades