Knobelsdorffhaus
The Knobelsdorffhaus is a town house on Alter Markt 9, formerly Brauerstraße 10, in the immediate vicinity of the Old Town Hall on the east side of the Old Market in Potsdam . Together with the old town hall and the glass passage, instead of the destroyed Windelband house, it forms the Potsdam Museum .
Building history and architecture
The Knobelsdorffhaus was built in 1750 according to plans by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff , after whom it is also named. The building, also known as Lehmann's House (after the first occupant), was based on motifs from English Palladianism , with Knobelsdorff taking up the facade designed by English architect Roger Morris for Marble Hill House in Twickenham in 1728.
The building is almost the same height as it is width. The two-and-a-half-storey building has five axes facing the Alter Markt and is emphasized by a flat, three-axis central projection with a triangular gable. While the ground floor has roofed windows and corner rustics, the bel étage is accentuated by arched windows with crowning faun masks as well as a curved balcony with delicate balustrade carried by atlases by Friedrich Christian Glume .
Three parapet sculptures by Johann Peter Benkert , two of which were replaced by copies during the reconstruction, close the risalit at the top. The sculptures depict the Roman goddesses Flora and Pomona and, in the center, the Roman god of the seasons, Vertumnus . The replicas of the latter two were created by the Caputh sculptor Horst Misch .
The fire gable on the north side of the Windelband House, which can be seen in old measurement photos and paintings, was replaced by a hipped roof before the Second World War ; The restoration also took place in this form.
The destruction in the war and the reconstruction
The British air raid on Potsdam on the evening of April 14, 1945 caused only minor damage to the old town hall. The days of artillery bombardment by the Red Army during the fighting around Potsdam, which lasted until April 30th, destroyed the entire building complex, the Windelbandsche Haus and the Knobelsdorffhaus. At first there was a lack of funds to rebuild the building ensemble, so that work did not begin until 1960. Only the facades and the stairwell with the dome of the old town hall were in a rebuildable condition. In 1966 the re-inauguration as a culture house , which was named after the working-class poet Hans Marchwitza . The Knobelsdorffhaus has been completely restored.
Opposite on the corner of Alter Markt 17, Klingner's house is to be reconstructed, which was built by Johann Boumann according to plans by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff and which was lost in the war. Together with the Knobelsdorffhaus, it formed a pair of buildings on the opposite side, which took up the triangular gables of the southern market wing of the Potsdam City Palace .
Web links
- Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation and State Archaeological Museum
- Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation and State Archaeological Museum Dehio Brandenburg, 2012, p. 845
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lothar Krone: An extraordinary sculptor . MAZ . January 26, 2017. Retrieved September 11, 2018.
- ↑ Klaus Büstrin: confusion . Potsdam latest news . February 16, 2008. Retrieved April 29, 2019.
- ^ Museum Digital
- ↑ Potsdam center
Coordinates: 52 ° 23 '44.5 " N , 13 ° 3' 43.7" E