Japanese palace

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Japanese Palace as seen from Palaisplatz
The Japanese Palace as seen from the associated baroque garden
The Dutch Palace
Japanese Palace, inner courtyard, northwest side wing, around 1889

The Japanese Palace is a historic building in the Inner New Town of Dresden . It is between Palaisplatz and Neustädter Elbe bank . The Japanese Palace now serves as a museum building and houses the Museum of Ethnology and the Senckenberg Natural History Collections . It is the former seat of the State Museum of Prehistory , which is now the State Museum of Archeology (smac) in Chemnitz.

history

The original building, which is no longer recognizable as such, goes back to a summer palace (type “maison de plaisance”) built by Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann for Jakob Heinrich Graf von Flemming in 1715 . At the end of the same year, the Dutch envoy Harsolde von Craneburg (who died there on January 29, 1716) moved into it, which is why, according to older written sources, it was given its name as the Holländisches Palais . In fact, the name probably refers to the specially designed garden landscape, which was laid out according to typical Dutch models, for example from Het Loo Castle .

As early as 1717, however, the palace passed into the possession of August the Strong , who housed his extensive collection of East Asian porcelain and parts of the art chamber here . Conversely, the construction of the “porcelain castle” stimulated the production of August's own porcelain factory in Meißen , founded in 1710 . It delivered a total of 35,798 pieces of porcelain for the Japanese Palace. In addition to Johann Gottlob Kirchner , Johann Joachim KÄNDER , who was employed as a model master in 1731, created a large number of life-size animal figures at the request of the king. In 1737 he completed the three meter high porcelain carillon with 51 bells, which probably goes back to a design by Pöppelmann and takes up the shape of the crown gate of the Zwinger. Together with other parts of the Dresden porcelain collection , it is now on display in the Zwinger .

On September 10, 1719, the elector held the first of the so-called seven planetary festivals here on the occasion of the wedding of his son to the emperor's daughter Maria Josepha von Habsburg. Between 1717 and 1723, August der Starken planned renovation and expansion measures for the Holländisches Palais (including the new Reithalle building project in 1717), but only very few of them were implemented (Königstrasse complex, the garden was refurbished with 100 magnificent marble sculptures).

In 1725, the elector finally commissioned the final, very complicated conversion plan. On July 26, 1727, a farewell party was held in the premises, but according to recent findings, the main building of the palace was used until the summer of 1730.

In the years from 1729 to 1733, extensive renovation and new construction work was carried out on the building based on designs by the architects Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann , Zacharias Longuelune and Jean de Bodt . The original pleasure palace formed the wing of a large four-wing complex facing the Elbe in late baroque - classicist style. “In this last major project of August the Strong, the collegial working method of the Dresden Oberbauamt, in which the various drafts and suggestions of the individual architects are brought together for the final solution, becomes particularly clear ... At the Japanese Palace, those in the first overlap again Decades dominant and the new style: The lively, decorative style associated with the name Pöppelmann, and the classicizing tendencies as developed by Longuelune and Knöffel. ”Jean de Bodt designed, similar to his portico at the Berlin armory , here too a domed portico with a triangular gable. “Actually in its monumentality foreign to Dresden, but this middle section connects in a successful way with the curved roof shapes of the corner pavilions that go back to Pöppelmann.” The name of the building, which is still in use today, was given in 1732, for which the decorations on the exterior and, above all, the planned porcelain furnishings had given the occasion.

Thomaes gable relief

The Asian effect is underlined by the roofs with their Far Eastern shapes as well as by herms and other figures in the Asian style on the outer facade and in the inner courtyard, as well as by the relief created by Johann Benjamin Thomae in the gable of the main facade. This shows Saxons and Chinese (or Japanese) showing their porcelain products to the goddess Saxonia , with the right-wing Saxon group demonstrating a claim to superiority. A ceiling painting was also planned in a similar way, on which a dispute takes place in front of Minerva , who places the prize in the hands of Saxony, while the Chinese, disappointed, load their goods back onto their ships ... After the death of August the Strong, his son approved and successor, who was more interested in paintings than porcelain, but from 1733 only limited funds and the construction work was completed in 1738–1744.

The building suffered considerable damage during the Seven Years' War . With the subsequent renovation between 1782 and 1786 by Christian Friedrich Exner and Gottlob August Hölzer , the inscription Museum usui publico patens (museum for public use) , which still exists today, was added. The plans for the museum use came from the Lord Chamberlain Ludwig Siegfried Graf Vitzthum von Eckstädt , who made it possible to finance the renovation by selling duplicates of the acquired Brühlschen (62,000 volumes) and the Bünausch library (42,000 volumes). After Count Vitzthum's death, his successor, Count Marcolini , carried out the renovation. The builder Johann Gottfried Kuntsch was involved in the renovations and the sculptor Dorsch was responsible for the interior design. From 1786 the upper floor rooms of the Japanese Palais served the electoral library, from which the Saxon State Library later emerged to a large extent and which remained there until 1945. It is one of the oldest libraries in Germany. In the period between 1786 and 1887 the antique collection in the palace was also housed in the ground floor rooms. Gottfried Semper was commissioned with a further renovation in the years 1835–1836 , who carried out a Pompeian-historical redesign for the sculpture collection on the ground floor. After moving to the Albertinum, the library took over these rooms.

In the years 1925 to 1935, renovations were carried out again so that the building could better meet its use as a state library and, when it was completed, its book museum opened in the Semper Halls on the ground floor . The planning for the book museum's premises was in the hands of Hubert Georg Ermisch .

During the Second World War , the Japanese Palace was severely damaged by fire, which also damaged parts of the state library. The surrounding garden was destroyed by bombs. From 1951 to 1987, the restoration work of the exterior and the reconstruction of some interior rooms (entrance hall, garden-side central room of the Sempersäle, stairwells and library hall in the Elbe wing) dragged on. Large parts of the interior of the palace are, however, still in the shell to this day. In 1984 and 1985, the associated palace garden, which offers a view of the Brühlsche Terrasse and Neue Terrasse on the other side of the Elbe, was redesigned in a greatly simplified manner. The Japanese Palace is one of the most important buildings of the Dresden Baroque , on which some of its greatest master builders participated.

In December 2017, the publicist Friedrich Dieckmann proposed to house and restore the original Neptune Fountain in Dresden's Friedrichstadt and to set up a copy in the eastern part of the garden of the Japanese Palace.

use

From 1951 to 2012 the building served the State Museum for Prehistory Dresden (to the State Office for Archeology of Saxony ), since 1954 also to the Museum of Ethnology Dresden (to the State Ethnographic Collections of Saxony ) for the presentation of exhibitions. Since 2001 exhibitions of the Museum of Mineralogy and Geology Dresden (from the Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden ) have taken place here.

The Japanese Palace is one of the oldest preserved museum buildings in Germany.

literature

  • Cordula Bischoff, Ulrich Pietsch (ed.): Japanese Palace in Dresden: The royal porcelain collection of August the Strong . Hirmer Verlag, 2014, 340 p., ISBN 978-3777421124 .
  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. Vol. Dresden . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich Berlin 2005, pp. 119–120, ISBN 3-422-03110-3 .
  • Götz Eckardt (ed.): Fates of German architectural monuments in the Second World War . Berlin 1978, pp. 372-443, Fritz Löffler : Stadtkreis Dresden.
  • Cornelius Gurlitt : Descriptive representation of the older architectural and art monuments of the Kingdom of Saxony. City of Dresden . 22nd issue, Dresden 1903.
  • Robert Reiss: The Japanese Palace - exhibitions in an architectural gem . In: Work and research reports on Saxon soil monument preservation, supplement 21 (Dresden 2010) 131–143.
  • Rainer G. Richter: The 'Royal Porcelain and Vessel Collection' in the Japanese Palace under the direction of Gustav Friedrich Klemm . In: Regina Smolnik (Ed.): Ceramics in Central Germany – State of Research and Perspectives . 41st International Pottery Symposium of the Working Group for Ceramic Research in Dresden, Germany, from September 21 to September 27, 2008. Publications of the State Office for Archeology, Volume 57. (Dresden 2012) ISBN 978-3-910008-99-1 , p. 15 -34.
  • Daniel Jacob: Baroque aristocratic palaces in Dresden - the buildings, their architects and residents . Publisher Daniel Jacob, 2011, 219 pp.

Web links

Commons : Japanisches Palais  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. The permanent archaeological exhibition on smac.sachsen.de ( Memento of the original from March 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.smac.sachsen.de
  2. ^ Gurlitt: Dresden . 1903, pp. 594, 596
  3. Hagen Bächler and Monika Schlechte: Guide to the Baroque in Dresden , Dortmund 1991, pp. 84–88.
  4. Bächler / Schlechte, ibid., P. 87
  5. a b Eckardt: Baudenkmäler , p. 398.
  6. Gurlitt: Dresden , 1903, p. 596
  7. Gurlitt: Dresden , 1903, p. 600
  8. a b Dehio, 2005, p. 119
  9. Dehio, 2005, pp. 119-120
  10. Copy of the Neptune Fountain at the Japanese Palace , Friedrich Dieckmann in: Newsletter 12-2017 Gesellschaft Historischer Neumarkt Dresden

Coordinates: 51 ° 3 ′ 35 ″  N , 13 ° 44 ′ 15 ″  E