Mausoleum in the Charlottenburg Palace Park

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The mausoleum

The mausoleum in the park of the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin was built in 1810 after the death of the Prussian Queen Luise and was later expanded as a burial place for other important members of the Prussian royal family. Luise's popularity long after her death ensured that the mausoleum was one of the main tourist attractions of Charlottenburg until the early 20th century .

history

Emergence

Queen Luise. Grave sculpture by Christian Daniel Rauch , Friedrichswerder Church
Exterior view, 1895
Interior view, 1895

Luise von Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wife of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. , died on July 19, 1810 at the age of 34 at Hohenzieritz Castle near Neustrelitz of pneumonia . The body of the popular and revered Queen was transferred to Berlin and buried on July 30, 1810 in the Berlin Cathedral .

Her widower commissioned the architect Heinrich Gentz to immediately build a mausoleum in the park of Charlottenburg Palace . Karl Friedrich Schinkel was involved in the work, and the king himself also took part in the drafts. Materials that were no longer needed in other locations could be used for the construction, such as columns from Oranienburg Palace or steps from Sanssouci Park . This made it possible to complete the structure in just five months. Friedrich Wilhelm III. Chosen a favorite place Luise in the Schlossgarten Charlottenburg at the end of a dark avenue of fir trees.

The Queen found her final resting place there on December 23, 1810. The place quickly developed into a place of worship for the worship of the late queen. Friedrich Wilhelm III. commissioned the sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch , a sarcophagus of marble with a sculpture resting on it Luise create. Rauch made the plaster draft under the eyes of the king in Berlin, the marble sarcophagus himself in Rome and Carrara . During the transfer in 1814, the English transport ship was captured by an American ship. Later, an English ship succeeded in stealing the sarcophagus from the American ship. So he reached his destination Charlottenburg only six months late and with damage from salt water in the spring of 1815.

Conversions

The temple-like gable front of the mausoleum with four Doric columns was initially made of sandstone . This portico was replaced in 1828 by a new version made of red granite, the original version has since stood in memory of Luise on the Pfaueninsel near Potsdam .

After King Friedrich Wilhelm III. Having died in 1840, Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse's mausoleum was extended in 1841 by a transverse building with an apse based on a design by Schinkel , so that the tombs of the royal couple could be housed together in the new, larger room. The smaller part of the building now served as an anteroom. The apse received a mural by Karl Gottfried Pfannschmidt in 1849 , a student of the painter Peter von Cornelius from the Nazarenes group . The motif is reminiscent of depictions from the early Middle Ages : Luise and Friedrich Wilhelm kneel right and left in front of the enthroned Christ.

After the death of the first German imperial couple, the building was enlarged again by Albert Geyer , so that in 1894 the marble sarcophagi created by Erdmann Encke of Wilhelm I († 1888) and Empress Augusta († 1890) could be set up here. Encke orientated himself - especially with the tomb for the empress - strongly to the explanations of Rauch.

The marble sarcophagi set up in the mausoleum are cenotaphs , i.e. tombs for the deceased who are not actually buried in them. The corpses lie in metal coffins in a crypt under the main room. At the feet of Friedrich Wilhelm III. and Luise was there also the heart of her son Friedrich Wilhelm IV. († 1861), as requested by him, let into the ground; his body is buried in the Peace Church in Potsdam . In the crypt under the anteroom are the tin coffins of Prince Albrecht of Prussia († 1872), the youngest son of Friedrich Wilhelm III. and Luise, and by Auguste Princess von Liegnitz († 1873), the second wife of Friedrich Wilhelm III. However, there is no grave or memorial plaque for them there.

Events

The visit of King Wilhelm I with his son Friedrich to the grave of his mother on July 19, 1870, the 60th anniversary of her death, became famous . Wilhelm came from a session of the North German Reichstag , which had met in the White Hall of the Berlin Palace because of France's declaration of war on the North German Confederation that day . The Franco-German War had begun. The visit is remembered through a painting by Anton von Werner from 1881. For compositional reasons, the painter only showed Wilhelm I in front of his mother's cenotaph . The victorious end of the war resulted in Wilhelm's elevation to German Emperor .

Redevelopment

In 2008, extensive renovation measures were planned for the mausoleum, which were completed in March 2010, on the 200th anniversary of Queen Luise's death. The total cost of around 715,000 euros will be financed from the budget of the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation (SPSG). Mainly damaged areas on the facade, on the stairs and in the interior were repaired and precautions were taken to prevent new damage from groundwater and condensation . The horticultural environment was also part of the renovation. Here a condition like when the mausoleum was built was restored by replanting.

Burials

Role model effect

Based on the plans for the mausoleum in the Charlottenburg Palace Park, the design by the Hanoverian court architect Georg Ludwig Friedrich Laves for the Guelph mausoleum in the mountain garden of Herrenhausen was evidently based on the solution found by Schinkel, as suggested by drawings in Laves' estate .

Web links

Commons : Mausoleum in the Charlottenburg Palace Park  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stephan Brandt: The Charlottenburg old town. Sutton, Erfurt 2011, ISBN 978-3-86680-861-4 . P. 62.
  2. ^ Stephan Brandt: The Charlottenburg old town. Sutton, Erfurt 2011, ISBN 978-3-86680-861-4 . P. 63.
  3. ↑ For the painting see Dominik Bartmann : Anton von Werner. On art and art politics in the German Empire. Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-87157-108-3 , p. 246 f.
  4. ↑ Dieter Lange: The mausoleum in the mountain garden , in: Günther Kokkelink , Harold Hammer-Schenk (ed.): Laves and Hannover. Lower Saxony architecture in the nineteenth century , ed. by Harold Hammer-Schenk and Günther Kokkelink (revised new edition of the publication Vom Schloss zum Bahnhof… ), Ed. Libri Artis Schäfer, 1989, ISBN 3-88746-236-X (582 pages), pp. 186-188
  5. ^ According to Dieter Lange: Main State Archives Hannover , LN 267/69


Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 27.2 "  N , 13 ° 17 ′ 30.5"  E