Musée Dräi Eechelen

A journey in time

An exceptional historic building, the Fort Thüngen redoubt today houses the Dräi Eechelen Museum, which recounts the story of Luxembourg’s fortress stronghold.

The actual construction of Fort Thüngen dates from 1732, when the Austrian authorities decided to reinforce Luxembourg’s fortress. It owes its name to the military commander Adam Sigismund von Thüngen. The new fort comprised an arrow-shaped redoubt, enclosing a soil core surrounded by a crenelated gallery around 1.80 m in width. The envelope surrounding the redoubt in the Park was formed as a stand-alone stronghold. The fort’s defences were supplemented by a network of underground galleries and 71 underground rooms, many of which still exist today.

In 1836, under Prussian control, the soil core of the redoubt was removed, enabling some 953 mof blockhouses to be introduced, capable of housing 400‒500 soldiers. The three towers were added to the breastwork, each topped by a stone acorn. This feature accounts for their name in Luxembourgish, as Dräi Eechelen (Three Acorns).

Following the Treaty of London in 1867, the dismantling of Fort Thüngen began in 1870. Apart from the three towers and the first blockhouse, the demolished fort was lost beneath a layer of soil and vegetation. The transformation of the Dräi Eechelen site into a park, by the Parisian landscape architect Edouard André (1840-1911), converted it into a place of recreation and leisure for Luxembourg’s residents.

Legislative proposals for the Mudam (Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean) on the site and for the Luxembourg Fortress Museum in the Thüngen redoubt, restored for that purpose, were voted through in 1996.

The redevelopment of the park, completed in spring 2009, is the work of the landscape architect Michel Desvigne.

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