Temple of Antiquity
The Antikentempel is a small round temple in the western part of the Sanssouci Park in Potsdam . Frederick the Great had the building built to store his collection of antique art objects, coins and gems . In 1768/69, Carl von Gontard created the building near the New Palace , north of Hauptallee, as a counterpart to the friendship temple built in an axis south of the avenue . The Temple of Antiquities has been used as a mausoleum for members of the Hohenzollern family since 1921 and is not open to the public. The Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg (SPSG) is responsible for maintaining the building, while the General Administration of the formerly ruling Prussian royal family is responsible for the coffins .
history
Museum building
Like the picture gallery in Sanssouci Park, the Temple of Antiquities was designed as a museum from the start and could be viewed at the time of Frederick the Great after registering with the castellan of the New Palace . In addition to dozens of objects from ancient small art, such as marble urns, bronze figures, tools, weights and ceramics, ten life-size marble statues, the so-called family of Lykomedes , were placed on marble plinths . Frederick the Great acquired it from the art collection of the French Cardinal Melchior de Polignac . Busts of marble, basalt and bronze were placed on fifty gilded consoles, thirty-one of which also came from the Polignac collection. The others came to Potsdam from the Bayreuth inventory of Friedrich's favorite sister, Wilhelmine , who was enthusiastic about antiquity. A side cabinet, which could only be entered through a doorway from the round main room, was used to accommodate the purchased collection of coins and gems from the property of Baron Philipp von Stosch . Four cedar wood cabinets were filled with over 9200 gold, silver and bronze coins, around 4,370 gems and cameos , 48 marble, terracotta and bronze relief pieces, and books from the archaeological library of Frederick the Great.
Friedrich Wilhelm III. , the reigning king on the Prussian throne from 1797, decreed in a cabinet order of September 1, 1798: “... to promote the study of antiquities and art ... the collection of medals and antiquities in the Temple of Antiquities in Potsdam with the similar collections in Berlin to unite and entrust the Academy of Sciences, ... “ The coin and gem collection came into the antique cabinet of the Berlin City Palace in the same year. After the defeat of Prussia by the Napoleonic army near Jena and Auerstedt in 1806 and the subsequent French occupation , Napoleon had the remaining sculptures brought to France as booty. Except for one relief, they returned to Prussia in 1815 and after a restoration in the workshop of the sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch they came to the Berlin Old Museum, which opened in 1830 .
Memorial for Queen Luise
After the antique temple had stood empty for several years, King Friedrich Wilhelm III let him. into a memorial for Queen Luise , who died on July 19, 1810 . In June 1828 the second version of the sarcophagus designed by Christian Daniel Rauch with the reclining grave statue of the queen was installed there. The first version of the sarcophagus is in the mausoleum in the Charlottenburg Palace Park .
In autumn 1904, the second version came to the Hohenzollern Museum in Berlin's Monbijou Palace, which was destroyed in World War II. From 1989 to 2012 the sarcophagus made available to the Nationalgalerie as a permanent loan stood in the Friedrichswerder Church , which is closed until further notice due to structural damage (status 2018).
Reconstruction plans under Wilhelm II.
During the reign of Wilhelm II , plans were drawn up for the use of the Temple of Antiquities as a court chapel. The architect Ernst Eberhard von Ihne made several design drawings. The first of 1904/05 envisaged a redesign in the style of the Italian High Renaissance . In 1913 he made drawings with an interior design in the style of classicism . However, due to other construction projects and the outbreak of World War I, the project was not realized.
An order from 1918 to turn the building into a burial place for the imperial rulers was not carried out either. Nevertheless, Empress Auguste Viktoria was buried in accordance with her wishes on April 19, 1921 in the temple of antiquities, which was the final resting place for other members of the Hohenzollern family until the 1940s.
Mausoleum of the Hohenzollern
Five members of the House of Hohenzollern found their final resting place in the Temple of Antiquities:
- Joachim of Prussia (December 17, 1890 - July 18, 1920)
- The youngest son of the last German Emperor Wilhelm II died the day after his attempted suicide with an army revolver in St. Josef Hospital, Potsdam. The prince's sarcophagus initially stood in the sacristy of the Potsdam Church of Peace and was moved to the Temple of Antiquities after 1931.
- Auguste Viktoria , b. Princess of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (* October 22, 1858, † April 11, 1921)
- The first wife of Kaiser Wilhelm II died after a serious illness in her exile in Haus Doorn near Utrecht . From 1920 the castle was the residence of the abdicated German emperor.
- Wilhelm of Prussia (July 4, 1906 - May 26, 1940)
- Prince Wilhelm was the eldest son of Crown Prince Wilhelm and thus the grandson of the last German Emperor Wilhelm II. The prince took part in the French campaign during World War II . After being seriously wounded in the fighting for Valenciennes , he died in a field hospital in Nivelles .
- Eitel Friedrich von Prussia (7 July 1883 - 8 December 1942)
- The second eldest son of Kaiser Wilhelm II died in his Villa Ingenheim in Potsdam .
- Hermione , b. von Reuss a. L. , used. von Schönaich-Carolath (* December 17, 1887 - † August 7, 1947)
- The second wife of Wilhelm II died of heart failure in Frankfurt (Oder) , where she was closely guarded by the Russian occupying forces .
architecture
Exterior design
The unadorned building is a closed round temple surrounded by ten Tuscan columns ( Tholos ). The inner diameter of the rotunda is about 16 meters. The square extension ( annex ) at the rear of the building measures 9.40 × 9.40 meters. It is provided with three windows. The vaulted roof is crowned by a lantern , from whose four transverse oval window openings light falls into the central room. The building can be entered through the only entrance, a round-arched, four-meter-high entrance door with an outside staircase. A rectangular gable top above the cornice emphasizes the front of the rotunda.
Interior design
The wall surface of the rotunda was clad with gray Silesian marble. Larger sculptures and vessels stood on a surrounding wooden console bench that is still in existence today. Above it on three floors, on fifty consoles, are the ancient busts. A marble overlay relief “Emperor Trajan on horseback” also decorates the wall area above the entrance door in a gilded frame. In addition to the sarcophagi of the imperial family, there is also a marble figure of Empress Auguste Victoria in the room. The sculptor Carl Begas created the monument in 1904 for the rose garden of the Empress at the New Palais. Faded paintwork inside the lantern shows genii in clouds holding a garland of flowers. The wall surfaces of the extension, which is reached through a round-arched door from the rotunda, are paneled with wood (boiserie).
literature
- General management of the Foundation Palaces and Gardens Potsdam-Sanssouci (Ed.): Potsdam Palaces and Gardens. Building and gardening art from the 17th to the 20th century. Castles and Gardens Foundation and Potsdamer Verlagbuchhandlung , Potsdam 1993, ISBN 3-910196-14-4 , pp. 137ff
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Website of the House of Hohenzollern ( Memento from January 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed October 17, 2010) and other sources. Karin Feuerstein-Praßer gives in her publication “Die Deutschen Kaiserinnen”, p. 259, the consequences of a stroke as the cause of death .
Coordinates: 52 ° 24 '8.2 " N , 13 ° 1' 7.3" E