New Garden, Potsdam

Coordinates: 52°24′56″N 13°04′10″E / 52.41556°N 13.06944°E / 52.41556; 13.06944
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
New Garden, Potsdam
UNESCO World Heritage Site
New Garden
LocationPotsdam, Brandenburg, Germany
Part ofPalaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin
CriteriaCultural: (i)(ii)(iv)
Reference532ter
Inscription1990 (14th Session)
Extensions1992, 1999
Coordinates52°24′56″N 13°04′10″E / 52.41556°N 13.06944°E / 52.41556; 13.06944
New Garden, Potsdam is located in Germany
New Garden, Potsdam
Location of New Garden, Potsdam in Germany
New Garden, Potsdam is located in Brandenburg
New Garden, Potsdam
New Garden, Potsdam (Brandenburg)

The New Garden (

hectares located southwest of Berlin, Germany, in northern Potsdam and bordering on the lakes Heiliger See and Jungfernsee.[1] Starting in 1787, Frederick William II of Prussia (1744-1797) arranged to have a new garden laid out on this site, and the design and landscaping was carried out by Johann August Eyserbeck, who had previously worked on the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm.[1]

The New Garden, along with the

World Heritage List in 1990 because of its unique unity of architecture and landscaping and its testimony to the power of Prussia in the 17th and 18th centuries.[2]

History

When he was still crown prince,

UNESCO World Heritage Site
). This park was the earliest and largest English landscape park on the continent and corresponded to the king's ideal of a garden. The architect of Wörlitz, Johann August Eyserbeck, was engaged to bring this concept to Potsdam.

At the same time a new garden was being laid out in Potsdam, Frederick William II had a new palace erected between 1787 and 1792. The Marmorpalais ("Marble Palace") was a work of early Classicism following plans by Carl von Gontard and Carl Gotthard Langhans, the latter primarily responsible for the interior work.[1] This building brought to Berlin-Brandenburg a style already long common in the rest of Europe and initiated a transition to a new artistic epoch.

The Marble Palace

In 1816, during the reign of

Frederick William III, Peter Joseph Lenné, at the time still a journeyman gardener apprentice, arrived in Potsdam and was given the task of redesigning the neglected and overgrown garden. While retaining some of the existing garden units he created an English landscape garden with extensive open spaces, lawns and wide pathways, and especially lines of sight to the Pfaueninsel, Glienicke, Babelsberg
and Sacrow.

Near the end of the reign of

Crown Prince Wilhelm, and his wife Cecilie lived there until early in 1945, and the site was selected for the signed of the Potsdam Agreement.[1]

Description

The dairy, now a restaurant
Palace kitchen as a temple ruin

In contrast to the extensive English

landscape gardens of the 19th century, whose primary elements were trees, meadows and water, the English garden of the 18th century was characterized by relatively discrete regions decorated with small architectural elements. The landscape character was emphasized in a design intended to reproduce nature. The trees and plants were not to be shaped and trimmed, but left to grow naturally. Rural life was also "rediscovered" in the process. Browsing cows were part of the scene in the New Garden, with their milk being processed to butter and cheese in a dairy
at the northwest corner of the park (it is now a lakeshore restaurant). Summer houses which existed on the property were incorporated in the planning and have survived to the present. They are designated by their color: the Brown, Red or Green House.

Frederick William II belonged to a lodge of

Rosicrucians.[citation needed] Several buildings in the New Garden reflect Freemason traditions. For example, the palace kitchen was built in the form of a partially buried temple, the cold storage room in the form of a pyramid, and the library in gothic style.[citation needed] This architecture bears no relationship to the purpose of the buildings. Carl Gotthard Langhans and Andreas Ludwig Krüger were acknowledging bygone styles when designing these utilitarian structures.[citation needed
]

The cold-storage ice house, erected in 1791-92 as a pyramid in the northern line-of-sight of the Marble Palace, was used to keep perishable food fresh. In the winter ice was removed from the nearby Heiliger See lake and stored in the lowest level of the cellar, which was about 5 meters below ground. The Gothic Library is at the southern border of the New Garden. This little two-level pavilion contained the library of Frederich William II, with works in French being located on the ground floor and those in German on the upper level. In contrast to his predecessor Frederick the Great, who favored everything French, Frederich William II encouraged German arts and letters. Only works by Friedrich Schiller and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing could be performed in Prussian theaters. The Egyptian entrance to the orangery (built from 1791 to 1793) is topped by a sphinx sculpture. Two black statues of Egyptian gods from the atelier of the sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow adorn wall recesses in the semicircular entrance area. A wood-paneled room with a decor of palm trees was located in the middle of this long narrow building. It was used for public concerts in which the musical king himself played the cello. To the east and west are halls for plants.

Frederick William II surrounded his place of retreat and refuge with a high wall along the west side of the park. The main entrance in the southwest is flanked by two Dutch-style gatehouses containing stables, carriage houses and the like. On the boulevard which led directly to the Marble Palace there are a number of red brick buildings also in a Dutch architectural style; these provided housing for servants as well as a charming scene when viewed from lake Heiliger See.

An artificial grotto decorated with minerals and shells on the northern end of the New Garden was constructed 1791/92 according to plans by Andreas Ludwig Krüger. This area for relaxation on warm summer days was supposed to look like a natural structure when viewed from the outside. Three rooms were decorated on the inside with mirrors, colored glass and shells. Only the foundation is left of a small kitchen built nearby. A little round forest house nearby, the Hermitage, had a reed roof and was covered with oak bark on the outside.

The palace kitchen, built between 1788 and 1790, an artificial ruin facing lake Heiliger See, was designed to look like a half-buried temple near the foot of a flight of stairs leading down from a terrace of the Marble Palace, to which it was connected by an underground corridor.

An

herme (1798) depicting the Greek military leader Themistocles
, a copy of an antique original.

List of historic buildings in the New Gardens

Constructed between 1787 and 1793 in the new Garden during the reign of Frederick William II:

Constructed between 1913 and 1916 under Kaiser Wilhelm II for Crown Prince Wilhelm:

  • Cecilienhof Palace
  • The Green House
    The Green House
  • Ice house shaped as a pyramid
    Ice house shaped as a pyramid
  • The so-called Gothic Library
    The so-called Gothic Library
  • Egyptian entrance to the orangery
    Egyptian entrance to the orangery
  • Cecilienhof Palace
    Cecilienhof Palace

Sources and further information

This article is based on a translation of the equivalent article "Neuer Garten Potsdam" in the German Wikipedia.

Gert Streidt, Klaus Frahm: Potsdam. Die Schlösser und Gärten der Hohenzollern. Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft mbH. Köln 1996,

ISBN 3-89508-238-4

  1. ^ a b c d ICOMOS Nomination of Chateaux and Parks of Potsdam-Sanssouci (Report). ICOMOS. 13 Oct 1989. Archived from the original on 12 June 2022. Retrieved 12 Jun 2022.
  2. ^ "Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Archived from the original on 8 August 2008. Retrieved 12 Jun 2022.

External links

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