03 Music Pavilion & Colonnades

Linger a little in front of the magnificent music pavilion from the period of Art Nouveau. Let's imagine how the orchestra takes its seat on the stage and starts its play...

Do they see the colonnades? They too are filled with the sounds of music when the orchestra plays! Specialties from all over the world are traded here.

Initially, the colonnades were a series of wooden boutiques until the architect Carl Dernfeld was commissioned in the mid-19th century to build today's stone arcade-style buildings based on the model of the "Passages de Paris". At that time, the small stores were a sensation! Such a thing hardly existed before - at least not for the better society. The most exclusive merchants opened their boutiques here! At Mellerio one bought the most beautiful jewelry in the world and the tobacco shop Rheinboldt was so successful that they started their own cigar production in Baden-Baden.

It was the Russian community that made smoking cigarettes fashionable! Under the tree in front of Rheinboldt's store, the Russian immigrants met and smoked cigars. "Russian tree" was therefore the popular name for this tree.

Do you know the novel "Smoke" by the Russian poet Turgenev? In it, he described the life of Russian guests in Baden-Baden in the 19th century wonderfully aptly! The novel was even filmed by the Südwestrundfunk together with the Russian television!
Baden-Baden was popular with the Russian literati! Not only Dostoyevsky, but also Turgenev, Gogol and later Tolstoy enjoyed the artistic freedom in the spa town - and an audience that understood them.

But not only prominent artists, also personalities from politics and the ruling houses arrived in Baden-Baden: The Royal and later Imperial Prussian couple were among the regular guests. Do you see the Dorint Hotel, directly behind us? That's where the Hotel Messmer used to be, where the German majesties resided year after year. During the presence of the monarchs, the house was closed to the public; after all, the fate of the empire was determined from here.

In 1863, there was even a meeting of three European emperors: Franz-Joseph of Austria, Tsar Alexander and Napoleon the Third. The high nobility, the artistic elite, representatives of commerce, finance and manufactures - everything that had rank and name met in Baden-Baden in the summer!

In 1850, two emperors, one empress, three kings, one queen, one grand duke, four grand duchesses, one grand prince and no less than 12 princesses and 16 princes stayed in Baden-Baden in one season. And that's not all: for the same year, the chronicle also records 50,000 additional guests - and that with only 6,700 inhabitants!