Haller Castle, Coplean
  • National Monument Number:
  • CJ-II-m-B-07576
  • Address:
  • Cășeiu commune, village of Coplean, nr. 67
  • Ownership:
  • church property

The construction (carried out between 1725 and 1771) of the Haller castle, otherwise known as the „castle with shells”, was ordered by Haller János, the lord lieutenant of Transylvania between 1735 and 1755. 

The castle was originally built in baroque style and later completed with rococo ornaments. These ornaments were made by the austrian sculptor, Schauchbauer Anton (1719-1789), who was also the author of the Saint Mary statue in Cluj-Napoca/Kolozsvár. Due to a fire in the 1920's, the baroque roof was utterly destroyed. The castle remained in the possession of the Haller von Hallerkö family until 1948, when the communist government transformed the building into an Agricultural Society and workshop. The castle was restored in the 1970's. After the revolution, the surrounding populace looted the place. Due to general ignorance, as well as the disinterest of the authorities in the past 20 years, the building’s condition worsened. The once elegant Transylvanian monument has become a pile of rubble, its brilliance only to be found in history books. The castle was abandoned after 1989. The descendants of the Haller family petitioned for the restoration of the severely deteriorated castle. The castle was added to the list of Cluj County Historical Monuments in 2004 with the approval of the Ministry of Culture.

The castle was built in the place of an old mansion. The building has a basement, a ground floor, an upper floor and roofing. There is a turret at the entrance. The building has a square-shaped layout and an interior park with poplars and chestnuts. It is supposed that the stone used in the construction of the castle came from the ruins of the Roman bastion from Cășeiu/Alsókosály. The building is 24.5 meters long and has 6 ornate stone pillars at the entrance. The pillars support a balcony 9.5 meters long and 2.5 meters wide. The massive walls are 1 meter thick massive. The shell-shaped ornaments that beautify the upper windows can still be seen today; they are the reason why people started calling it the „castle with shells”.

 

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