Under Archbishops Günther II and Friedrich III, the lower castle (German:
Unterburg) was built between 1445 and 1464. Prior to this, Günther II had sold the castles of
Bad Lauchstädt, Liebenau, and
Schkopau to finance the construction. No archaeological evidence of a predecessor to the lower castle has been found; however, it is assumed that an outer bailey or an economic courtyard must have existed for such an important castle. The curtain wall with
flanking towers, the moat, and the inner perimeter buildings were constructed as part of a unified building project. Only the eastern curtain wall, apart from the gatehouse, remained free of buildings. During the reign of Archbishop Johannes, the granary (
Kornhaus) was built, standing freely in the castle courtyard. As early as around 1500, the residential buildings were repurposed for economic use: the
brewhouse was added to the south side of the west wing of the lower castle, and the Mushaus at the northern end was converted into a
distillery. In 1706, the baroque manor house (Herrenhaus) was constructed on the eastern side of the lower castle. Administrator Ochs had a stone bridge built — a predecessor of today's Giebichenstein Bridge — and transformed the moat and old castle grounds into a park. The lower castle is one of the two campuses of the
Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle (Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design). Founded in 1915, the university saw itself as an alternative to the
Bauhaus (founded in 1919), with a somewhat stronger focus on
craftsmanship. However, it also cooperated with the Royal Porcelain Manufactory in Berlin (KPM), which established an experimental studio in Halle. ==References==