Haus Witten takes conferences, seminars, company parties, trade shows, concerts, film screenings and weddings, with a concert hall for 140 people in rows or 80 at a banquet, a conference room for 60, a cinema and an open-air courtyard with a covered stage. The venue is a former manor house of the local lords at Ruhrstraße 86 in Witten, in the Ruhr valley, and it is rented out by the city's Kulturforum together with the nearby Saalbau.
Seminars and company events
The Konzertsaal, also called the Otto-Schott-Saal, works as the plenary room for a conference or a company meeting. The Konferenzraum handles seminars, workshops, exhibitions and smaller meetings, and the Kinosaal, with fixed cinema seating, is set up for lectures, slide shows and film screenings. The rooms can be combined for a full program. Sound, lighting and conference technology are installed, and technical staff advise on the setup and support the event on the day. Around 330 parking spaces lie between Haus Witten and the Saalbau, which together offer rooms for 10 to 1,000 people.
Weddings and receptions
The City of Witten uses the Konferenzraum as a permanent room for civil wedding ceremonies, booked through the local registry office. Café Amadeus, the caterer of the house, then hosts the Champagne reception and the wedding party.
Rooms and capacities
The Konzertsaal measures 123 m² and takes up to 140 in rows or 80 at a banquet, with a small stage in both layouts. Its historic walls are clad in glass with modern acoustic panels, and the room is wheelchair accessible. The Konferenzraum covers 82 m² and seats up to 60 in rows, with sandstone walls set against wood and steel and a restored 18th-century painting of Haus Witten as it looked in 1710. The Kinosaal measures 95 m² with fixed seating. A foyer serves receptions and breaks. The Innenhof, the former castle courtyard, is the center of the complex, with a covered stage for open-air events in summer.
Catering
Café Amadeus, run by Evangelos Zabacis, caters events in the house, from Champagne receptions to wedding meals, and uses the courtyard as a beer garden. It opens Tuesday to Saturday from 4:30 pm and on other days by arrangement.
History and setting
Franko von Witten, lord of the manor, began building a residential wing and a tower here in the late 15th century. In 1510 the rights passed to the von Brempt family, who turned the house into a fortified complex, and in the early 18th century the von der Recke family rebuilt it in the Baroque style, with four wings and corner towers. From 1788 the entrepreneur J. F. Lohmann leased the estate and set up a steel and file factory. Bombing at the end of World War II left a ruin. From 1992 the architects Hans-Busso von Busse and Eberhard Carl Klapp of Essen added new sections that stand clearly apart from the old walls, and Haus Witten reopened on June 8, 1996.
Getting there
The house stands on Ruhrstraße, close to the Ruhr and to central Witten. Witten Hauptbahnhof has regional trains across the Ruhr area, and Dortmund Airport is the nearest airport.
