Princely House (Berlin)
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The Princely House of Berlin served the Brandenburg electors and Prussian kings from 1698 to 1825 as a guest house for temporary accommodation of high-ranking visitors in their capital. The building at Kurstrasse 52/53 in Berlin was demolished in 1886. Today the Foreign Office is located here .
Building history
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excerpt from the Berlin map of Schmettau, 1757, north at the lower edge of the map
The property of the later Princely House was originally located on the site of the former so-called Schneidemühlenteich, which was filled in as part of the drainage of backwaters of the Spree. The Brandenburg general quartermaster Philip de Chiese erected a building on part of the newly acquired building site, but it was only half-finished when he died (1673) and was handed over by his heirs in 1674 to the Brandenburg civil servant Eberhard von Dankelmann (who later became the Elector's “Prime Minister” ) was sold. The Friedrichswerder town hall was located right next to the Dankelmann property .
After he was appointed State and War Council in 1688 and became the most powerful state servant in Brandenburg, Dankelmann had his house converted into a magnificent city palace according to plans by the architect Johann Arnold Nering .
The expansion work on the inside of the building was completed in 1690 and on the outer components in 1695. However, only three years later, in 1698, Dankelmann fell out of favor and Elector Friedrich III. confiscated the magnificent building. From then on it served as the “Princely House”, that is, to accommodate high-ranking foreign visitors.
Building description
The Princely House, which was behind or next to the Friedrichwerder town hall and was later designated Kurstraße 52/53 , was an extremely stately building: the front of 13 axes (i.e. with a width of 13 windows) had a stepped central projection with two portals, to each of which a one-armed flight of stairs led up. In front of the central window on the first floor was a balcony, which was still a rarity at the time. A row of sandstone figures on the roof top crowned the three-story building.
Around 1700 the well-known plasterer Giovanni Simonetti also worked in the Princely House. Since he worked closely with the architect Andreas Schlueter , it is possible that Schlueter had also supplied the designs for this.
Illustrious and bizarre guests
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Since the Princely House mainly accommodated official visitors, it was also known as the "Legation House". Numerous illustrious, but also some bizarre guests have stayed in the Princely House of Berlin over the years.
In 1704, Lord Marlborough , commander in chief of the English troops in the War of the Spanish Succession, lived in the Princely House.
In 1705, King Frederick I brought the Neapolitan charlatan and “gold maker” Don Domenico Manuel Caetano Conte de Ruggiero , an adventurer from the slums of Naples, from whose service he expected great profit, to live in the Princely House.
In 1707 a. a. the wife of the Swedish Prime Minister, Countess Piper. As the Prussian Queen's chambermaid, Pöllnitz, reported in a letter, the court suffered greatly under her moods and pride. One of her rooms in the Princely House had been adorned with tapestries depicting the deeds of the Great Elector , but these had to be removed again, as the Countess believed that the depiction of the Brandenburg victories was a mockery of Sweden.
In 1710, Prince Eugene of Savoy stayed at the Princely House during his visit to the Berlin court. The Russian prince Alexander Danilowitsch Menshikov , who came from a humble background, but made a career as a friend and confidante of the Russian tsar Peter I and was appointed prince of the empire in 1706, also lived there. Prince Leopold von Anhalt-Dessau also used to live there whenever he came to Berlin.
In 1733, Johann von Eckenberg, the well-known adventurer and court comedian of King Friedrich Wilhelm I , also known as the “strong man”, stayed in the Princely House for some time . The king had given him permission to organize so-called "assemblées". The aristocratic society of Berlin was able to enjoy themselves by paying a membership fee of 30 thalers , twice a week, every Tuesday and Friday, with card games and music in the Princely House, with coffee, tea, chocolate and lemonade being served free of charge.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe , who accompanied his sovereign Duke Karl August to Berlin, lived in 1778 according to a message from Luisa Karsch to Ludwig Gleim in the "Logis der Stremmden Prinzen", d. H. in the Princely House on Friedrichswerder. Goethe, who had lived in Weimar since 1776, was on an inspection trip north via Leipzig when he spontaneously decided in Leipzig to go to Berlin with Duke Carl August, in whose service he was. Carl August, 21 years old, and Goethe, 29 years old, arrived in Berlin on the evening of May 12 and stayed in the city for five days.
Other uses
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picture by Johann Baptist Hoessel
The royal pages were housed on the third floor of the Princely House when the King was in Berlin. In 1766 the Royal Stamp and Card Chamber was moved to the Princely House and after the Royal House had received the building on Molkenmarkt , the Upper War College got its seat in the building.
Between 1825 and 1875, classes at the Friedrichwerder Gymnasium in Kurstraße took place in the former Princely House , at times together with the trade school. Since 1877 the clothing company Hahn & Klenke Confections , which factory-made women's coats for wholesale and export, has also used part of the rooms of the Princely House for its business operations.
Demolition of the Princely House and the Old Mint
The Princely House was demolished in 1886, at the same time as the mint designed by Heinrich Gentz , which was built on the site of the Friedrichswerder town hall that burned down in 1794. Both buildings had to give way to a commercial building for the Werderscher Markt Aktien-Gesellschaft, the Werderhaus , designed by Alfred Messel .
literature
- Richard Borrmann : The architectural and art monuments of Berlin. Berlin 1893.
- Richard Borrmann: The Princely House and the old mint on Werderscher Markt in Berlin. In: Ministry of Public Works (Hrsg.): Zeitschrift für Bauwesen . Berlin 1888, vol. 38, col. 287 ff.
- Johann Christian Gädicke: Lexicon of Berlin. Berlin 1806.
- Friedrich Nicolai: Description of the royal royal cities of Berlin and Potsdam, all the peculiarities located there, and the surrounding area. (3 volumes, 1 appendix). Berlin 1786.
- Erika Schachinger: The Berlin suburb Friedrichswerder 1658–1708. Verlag Böhlau, Cologne 1993, ISBN 3-412-13992-0 .
References and comments
- ^ Nicolai: Description of the royal royal cities of Berlin and Potsdam. 1786, Volume 1, p. 155.
- ^ Drawing by Johann Stridbeck the Elder. J.
- ^ Schachinger: The Berlin suburb Friedrichswerder. 1993, p. 116 f., Also p. 117, note 569.
- ↑ Peter Bahl : The court of the great elector. Studies on the higher officials in Brandenburg-Prussia. Verlag Böhlau, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-412-08300-3 , p. 282.
- ^ Schachinger: The Berlin suburb Friedrichswerder. 1993, p. 116 f.
- ↑ Borrmann: The Princely House and the Old Mint. 1888, col. 291.
- ^ Siegfried Fischer-Fabian: Preussens Gloria. The rise of a state. 1st edition. Verlag Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2007, ISBN 978-3-404-64227-4 , p. 73 (paperback no.64227)
- ↑ Borrmann: The Princely House and the Old Mint. 1888, col. 292.
- ↑ Borrmann: The Princely House and the Old Mint. 1888, col. 292.
- ^ Nicolai: Description of the royal royal cities of Berlin and Potsdam. 1786, Volume 1, p. 155.
- ^ Gädicke: Lexicon of Berlin. 1806, p. 203.
- ↑ A view of the Princely House in the 1880s shows the painting by Paul Andorff The Princely House in Kurstrasse , shown in: Rolf Bothe u. a .: Cityscapes. Berlin in painting from the 17th century to the present. Publishers: Willmuth Arenhövel, Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung. Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-87584-212-X , p. 217.
- ↑ A photo of the Princely House shortly before its demolition is kept in the Architecture Museum of the TU Berlin.
- ^ Schachinger: The Berlin suburb Friedrichswerder. 1993, p. 117.