Haldenstein Castle, Medieval castle in Haldenstein, Switzerland

Haldenstein Castle is a castle with a fortified character in the village of Haldenstein, now part of Chur. It consists of four three-storey wings grouped around a courtyard with a fountain from the 1890s. Two wall towers stand at the garden corners, and two stair towers adjoin the north and south wings. The south wing has two short projecting wings to the east and west.

Haldenstein Castle was built in the village from 1544 to 1548 by Jean Jacques de Castion, the French envoy to the Three Leagues, replacing an older stone house; the shell was finished in 1545. It marks the transition from castle to manor in Graubünden. In 1656 the Schauenstein brothers split it by lot along its long axis, and Gubert von Salis reunited the halves in 1729. A fire on 27 June 1732 largely destroyed it, but it was restored within a year.

The castle's name comes from the village of Haldenstein, and the building served as the seat of a small independent lordship owing allegiance to the Bishop of Chur until 1803. Since 2001 the courtyard has hosted the Schlossoper Haldenstein opera festival every two years in August, and the grounds are still used for cultural events.

The castle stands in the village of Haldenstein itself, not on the hill above it; the older Haldenstein castle ruin sits on the ridge. Today the building houses the municipal administration, the Archaeological Service of Graubünden and a café, and the courtyard, garden and rooms can be rented from the foundation for events.

The castle's most valuable room, the Prunkzimmer in the south wing, lost its panelling and stove in 1884, when they were sold to the Berlin Kunstgewerbemuseum; the woodwork is now in Schloss Köpenick. A round pane of 1587 with the Schauenstein coat of arms and family portraits of the von Salis are kept in the Rätisches Museum in Chur.