OH-W08 Lohra Castle
Germany
Environment
Manual work
Renovation
Environment
Manual work
+1
Fixed dates
About the project
OH-W08 Lohra Castle
📝 Detailed information
🏢 About the local organisation
Open Houses – rooms open for those who come along.
Open Houses – not empty buildings, but places with visible and invisible traces of history, places which have grown and decayed over the centuries, places which were shaped by those people who lived there long ago as well those who left only yesterday – places which will be shaped by those who live there or who come as a guest.
Open Houses – rooms which want to be filled with dreams and ideas, with meetings and exchange, by people of different backgrounds, different cultures, different generations and different ideas and visions.
The history of Open Houses Network dates back to the mid-1980s, when a group of young people started to restore village churches in East Germany in voluntary work to protect them from decay. The engagement for these buildings united people who enjoyed the freedom these activities provided and who filled these rooms with life again in ways which by far exceed the craftsmen's work done – through exhibitions, concerts, making music together or just sitting by the camp fire.
Meanwhile, rooms free of political and ideological pressure are no longer urgently required; however, places have become rare where people can meet without commercial pressure, free of bureaucracy and institutionalism, free of nepotism and the exclusion which it produces. What should be easy – to go somewhere in order to meet people and to work together – has become difficult. The tightrope walk between, on the one hand, public activities in a monetary and functional sense, and the retreat into private life on the other, is very difficult, and it requires a lot of power and permanent efforts to tackle red tape and financial restrictions.
Free spaces are less and less understood as common property, and are permanently being cut back. The idea of public property seems to have gone out of fashion, and places of common responsible work have become rare.
Open Houses Network tries to create and protect such spaces. In this process, we do not want to be the doers, but be people who have a vision, who want to initiate something, but who also are aware of depending on the co-operation of others. We understand our projects and events as offers – as offers to create space for commitment, for changes, for meetings.
💼 What the programme involves
The projects of Open Houses are based on sustainable principles. Therefore, the activities at Lohra Castle combine aspects of cultural heritage preservation and aspects of natural heritage preservation. The participants of the Workcamps carry out works in the green areas and the forests around the castle, restoration work and collaboration in renovation works.
The castle is surrounded by a vast green area and the volunteers will help in the maintenance of it, Near the youth accommodation houses that are part of the Lohra Castle complex there is a camping site which can be used by youth groups, for this reason the area should be made accessible from overgrown grass. The tasks will be mowing and collecting the grass. Additionally, the participants of the project will support the work on renovations on the Castle grounds.
The camping grounds are being expanded to include a new area where toilet facilities will be installed in the future. The volunteers will assist the works on the pipelines. In addition they will support with the upkeep of the already used camping grounds to allow groups of visitors as well as the volunteers themselves, enjoy the open spaces.
The hilly massive around Lohra Castle is listed as National Nature Reserve. Open Houses supports the Reserve since several years with volunteering activities. In a forest near the Castle the participants will remove trees and bushes which are not corresponding with the protection aims in order to clean the paths and make them enjoyable again. They will also will collect the wood remaining after maintenance works, load it on a truck, unload it at the castle and split and stack it for wintertime or for the fireplace. Besides that, the volunteers will continue the maintenance of the green area at the castle.
Because around the outer walls of the castle trees had been grown up during the last two decades, actually the castle is partly not seen from the valley. So, besides taking care of green areas the volunteers will help to cut the trees around the walls in order to expose the view to the castle and will transport the wood to the storage place as well as splitting and stacking the wood. Besides that, the volunteers will take care of the nearby natural protected area, a huge meadow with old scattered fruit trees, which was for a long time out of maintenance. The participants will collect stones and branches covered under the grass to enable to mow and collect the grass and afterwards level the ground. Additionally, there will be involvement in some small renovation works.
🏠 Accommodation on site
ACCOMMODATION:
shared rooms with 2 – 5 beds in 3 guest houses, warm shower (limited hot water), 1 camp kitchen (cold water), coal-burning stoves
FINANCES
All costs linked to the project are covered, including food, accommodation, insurance and transportation during the stay at the project. Travel costs to and from the camp place are not covered. Participants should organise their journey to and from the project place by themselves and on their own expenses. Furthermore, participants should bring their own pocket money.
FOOD
The meals will be prepared together as they are part of the community life, what means that every participant will be responsible for the meal at least once during its stay. So it would be very nice if the participants could bring typical recipes from home in order to introduce each other to the preparation of food from all over the world.
📍 About the location
Lohra Castle is situated in the heart of Germany in Northern Thuringia. The castle, which is surrounded by a scenic hilly landscape, is located on the edge of a nature reserve area. Being one of the largest castles in Thuringia, the history of the castle Lohra begins in the Middle Age. The castle is more than 1,000 years old. Today, it includes twenty buildings from different times: medieval fortifications, remnants of a tower from the 11th century, a Romanesque chapel, a manor house from the Renaissance period as well as stables and granaries from the 19th and the early 20th centuries. The ensemble is situated in the centre of a beautiful forest. For years Lohra Castle was vacant. In the 1990s Open Houses started to restore the castle and to revive it by cultural activities. Since that time, a large number of Workcamps, Building Weeks, exhibitions, concerts and other activities with international participants took place in the castle.
Interested in this project? Create your account and apply online.
Sign in to apply📷 Project photos
OH-W08 Lohra Castle
OH-W08 Lohra Castle
/ 2
📅 Available sessions
OH-W08
11/09/2022 → 24/09/2022
Volunteers registered
0 / 12
♂ 0/5
♀ 0/7
ℹ️ Key information
Age required
18–32 years old
Solidarity donation
0.00
French tax residents may be eligible for a tax reduction of up to 66% of their costs (membership, plane tickets, solidarity donation).
📍 Location
Thuringia, Germany
Germany
🌍 Location info
Local currency
Euro Member Countries (EUR / €)
🛡️ Before you leave
✅ Features
🏠 Accommodation
Collective
🗣️ Languages spoken
English
German