Shell grotto in the New Garden
The crystal and shell grotto in the New Garden is located in the north of the Potsdam park on the banks of the Jungfernsee , south-east within sight of the dairy and north of the Cecilienhof Palace . Friedrich Wilhelm II commissioned the court building officer Andreas Ludwig Krüger with the planning of a grotto, which was built under the direction of his son Friedrich Ludwig Carl Krüger between 1791 and 1794 on a specially constructed hill. The grotto in the palace gardens of Oranienburg , built around 1754/56, served as a model . In contrast to the building there, which was recognizable as garden architecture, the grotto in the New Garden should appear as if it had been created by nature. In order to achieve this naturalness, Krüger had the brick building clad with lawn iron stone from Golzow, lime tuff from Rothenburg ob der Tauber , gypsum stone from the Harz Mountains, as well as slag and fused, sintered bricks, so-called "melt" .
Contrary to the natural exterior, the three interiors were artfully designed. An open, inwardly tapering entrance hall in the southeast was followed by a cabinet , a hall and again a cabinet . The plasterer Constantin Philipp Georg Sartori was commissioned to decorate the interiors, who decoratively decorated the walls and cabinet vaults with materials such as colored Marienglas , green serpentinite , blue and red glass flow from Silesian huts, shells and snails. The decorative painter Bartolomeo Verona designed the flat ceiling of the central hall as an oval, open dome. The edge of the painted oval was adorned with a balustrade with birds and reeds. In the middle part was an eagle with a ribbon. The wall surfaces, structured with niches and mirrors, opened to the northeast to the Jungfernsee through French windows.
From the reign of Friedrich Wilhelm III. the grotto was only rarely used, but structurally preserved through necessary repairs. When the Berlin Wall was built, it lay in the border strip and fell into disrepair. Since 2004, the shell grotto has been supported by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation in Berlin-Brandenburg with the support of the “Shell Grotto in the New Garden Potsdam e. V. “gradually restored.
The crystal and mussel grotto served as a hidden place for tea parties and for dining, for which a small kitchen was required. In 1796, a wooden frame building on a circular floor plan, clad with oak bark, was built to the southwest of the grotto . In the middle of the reed-covered roof, a tree trunk made of chipped iron with an owl on the top stuck out. In 1958, the bark kitchen was demolished due to dilapidation and rebuilt from 2010 to 2012.
literature
- Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg: garden • border • garden . Potsdam 2004, pp. 67-69
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Coordinates: 52 ° 25 ′ 14.5 " N , 13 ° 4 ′ 17.5" E