Orangery Palace (Potsdam)
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The Orangery Palace , also known as the New Orangery , was built by Friedrich Wilhelm IV. In his residence city of Potsdam from 1851 to 1864 on the Bornstedter ridge on the northern edge of the Sanssouci park . Based on his sketches, the architects Friedrich August Stüler and Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse made designs for a building in the style of the Italian Renaissance . The Orangery Palace houses a painting room with copies of works by the renaissance painter Raffael , former guest apartments and servants' apartments, some of which are available for museum purposes, and halls for wintering the exotic potted plants from the Sanssouci park. The Orangery is from the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg administers (SPSG) and is since 1990 as a World Heritage Site under the protection of UNESCO .
The high road project
The construction of the orangery castle is closely related to the planning of a two-kilometer high road or triumphal road, similar to a Roman via triumphalis . It should begin east of the Sanssouci park, at the triumphal gate below the Mühlenberg on today's Schopenhauerstraße, reach the height of the Mühlenberg as a serpentine , then lead west through the courtyard on the north side of the Sanssouci Palace and past the historic mill at the Belvedere on the Klausberg , northwest of the park. In addition to the existing buildings from the Frederician era, new buildings were planned for a temple in honor of Frederick II on the Mühlenberg, or an amphitheater from around 1848 , as well as viaducts to compensate for the differences in height, terraces and Italian-style buildings and, as an architectural highlight, the Orangery Palace on the Bornstedter Mountain range.
Friedrich Wilhelm IV was already studying designs for Italian Renaissance structures during the time of the Crown Prince. He found them in the publications Choix des plus célèbres maisons de plaisance de Rome et de ses environs (selection of the famous country houses of Rome and the surrounding area), Paris 1809, the French architects Charles Percier and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine , as well as in the engraving Architecture Toscane (Architecture of Toscana) published in Paris in 1815 by Auguste Henri Victor Grandjean de Montigny and Auguste Pierre Sainte Marie Famin . On his first trip to Italy in 1828, he made numerous drawings and travel impressions that aroused the desire to beautify Sanssouci and the Potsdam landscape with Italianized buildings.
After taking over the government in 1840, he decided to also use Sanssouci as a summer residence, in close connection with his ancestors. In order for them to meet the needs of a royal residence, the king had modernization and restoration work carried out on the buildings and the park was equipped with functioning fountains and new copies of sculptures. The order for the architectural planning was given to the Schinkel student Ludwig Persius and, after his death in 1845, Friedrich August Stüler and Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse. The garden architect Peter Joseph Lenné was entrusted with the gardening work . The project work on the Höhenstraße was initially delayed due to excessive price demands and lengthy negotiations with the owners of the properties on the Bornstedter mountain range, which lasted from 1842 to 1847. There was also political unrest, which ended in the uprisings of the March Revolution in 1848 . A lack of financial means for a project of this magnitude and the king's illness in 1858 meant that the project was only partially implemented. In addition to minor construction work, the triumphal gate and a vintner's house behind it, a mill house at the historic mill, the Sicilian and Nordic gardens and the orangery castle with terraces were implemented.
Orangery Castle
planning phase
In the case of the buildings along the Höhenstraße, the practical use of individual buildings should be taken into account in addition to a representative external effect. This included, above all, new plant halls for wintering the numerous potted plants set up in the gardens in summer; because the old greenhouses from the Frederician times were no longer up-to-date and in need of repair. As early as the time of the Crown Prince, Friedrich Wilhelm IV was planning the Charlottenhof Palace with the construction of a larger orangery, as a drawing from 1826 shows. The building on the Bornstedter ridge was supposed to be a combination of a plant hall and a painting room to house the Raphael collection of his father Friedrich Wilhelm III. be. There were initially no usage regulations for the other rooms. A large number of his own sketches and drawings are based on models from Villa Pamphili , Villa Madama and Villa Borghese . According to the king's specifications, Ludwig Persius made the first drafts for a building with classicist style elements from 1840 onwards . Since most of the drawings are unsigned, they can only be roughly assigned to him on the basis of his diary entries from October 12, 1840 to September 25, 1843. Persius designed an elongated building with a column front and a podium in front of it on the southwest side and a semicircular outward-jumping middle section on the northeast side. A double tower complex in the middle was flanked by plant halls, at the ends of which there were variously designed wing structures. Persius did not live to see the start of construction on the orangery. He died in 1845 before construction began. Due to the king's requests for changes, the exterior design was later rejected by Stüler and Hesse.
Building history
After the land negotiations were concluded, Peter Joseph Lenné had the earthworks begin, which Gustav Meyer took over. In the winter of 1848/49, the area on the ridge was leveled, a water basin was dug on the northeast side of the planned building and the southern slope was terraced. In 1850 Friedrich August Stüler and, under his leadership, Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse, received the order to design the orangery building. In 1851 the plant hall stretching to the west was built, although due to the indecision of the king there was still no final overall plan. In the winter of 1852/53, the hall, which was completed in 1854, could already be used to overwinter the plants. After Friedrich Wilhelm IV had decided on a design, work began on the central building in 1853, which was completed in the outdoor area in 1858. Between 1854 and 1856 construction work followed on the plant hall adjoining to the east. The model for the twin towers of the central building [...] was the Villa Medici in Rome, for the facade structure of the plant halls with the mezzanine floor and the pavilions as well as the central wing was the facade of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence facing the Arno . Stüler, who was busy with the renovations at Schwerin Castle , the construction of the New Museum in Berlin and other orders, followed the king's sketches with his design and largely left the decorative details and interior design to Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse.
Due to illness, Friedrich Wilhelm IV handed over the reign to his brother Wilhelm in October 1858 and spent the following winter in Italy, where he acquired other works of art from painters and sculptors to decorate the Orangery Palace. During his absence, he gave written instructions for further expansion. When the king died in 1861, the shell of the eastern corner pavilion had only been completed and that in the west had not yet begun. The construction was completed in 1864 under his successor King Wilhelm I. The facade and terrace design with sculptures lasted until the 1870s. With a total length of around 304 meters, the Orangery Palace was the longest building in the Sanssouci Park.
architecture
Mittelbau
In Stüler's new design based on sketches by Friedrich Wilhelm IV, the basic idea of the structural arrangement by Persius was largely reproduced, although it was given a different style thanks to building elements from the Renaissance. A columned courtyard with a portal building was placed in front of the twin tower system of the central building on the southwest side, of whose three high arched openings the middle one shows the Palladi motif. A repetition of the motif can be found on the south-west side of the twin towers and on the north-east side on a two-storey loggia , the so-called tea hall, that ends with the building line . The Raffael Hall, which extends over two floors and around which five generously equipped living rooms are grouped, is located on the ground floor. The towers of the complex, each with a belvedere on the top floor and flat tent roofs made of sheet zinc, are connected by a colonnade that can be walked on . From here there is a long view to the south into the Sanssouci Park, to Bornstedt in the north and the wider area. The twin towers and the portal structure are adjoined on both sides by three-axis building cubes with a ground floor and a mezzanine floor. In the southern area, the ground floors are already part of the plant halls. Doors in the cast-iron lattice windows that extend over two floors allow access from the portico. The Palladi motif can also be found in the lattice windows. The apartments are in the northern half of the central building. The entire central building is surrounded by a roof balustrade decorated with vases and copies of figures based on ancient models made of zinc and terracotta . The sculptures erected after 1862 come from the workshop of the sculptor Ernst March and the Potsdam zinc foundry Friedrich Kahle.
The design of the facades with sculptural decoration took place only after the death of Friedrich Wilhelm IV and was largely decided by his brother Wilhelm I. In the south wall of the twin towers, three high doors lead into the building. The middle entrance to the Raphael Hall is flanked by two wall structures in the style of an aedicula with female figures in their niches. They symbolize painting with a palette and sculpture with a hammer and the head of Zeus of Otricoli. The sculptures made in Rome in 1868 are works by the sculptor Moritz Schulz . Two side doors lead to stairways. They are framed by serpentine vases on tall pillars.
Four niches on the southwest portal building are decorated with female statues. One representation of the watering of flowers symbolizes the garden art and another with a plan and protractor symbolizes the architecture . Eduard Stützel made both figures in 1868 and 1871 based on a model by Albert Wolff . For the southeastern side, Eduard Mayer created Die Industrie with gear, pliers, hammer and beehive as well as Die Wissenschaft with a book. Both works were shown at the Berlin art exhibition in 1872. The stucco reliefs on the facades are by Friedrich Wilhelm Dankberg , one of the most sought-after artists of his time for plastic jewelry. In the pillared courtyard, Tondi show the four seasons; the facade of the portal building bears terracotta replicas of ancient heads. Moritz Schulz designed the wall niches on the north side of the central building in 1870 with the times of day. In the east the morning and the day , in the west the evening and the night .
Some of the marble sculptures in the loggia were bought by Friedrich Wilhelm IV for the orangery, or they were initially in the Sanssouci Palace and the picture gallery and were later placed in the loggia. Amor, sitting on a turtle from 1858, was bought by the king a year later in Rome from Wilhelm Rudolf Henkelmann, known as Rudolf Piehl . Venus, created by Eduard Mayer in 1859, also comes from this trip . The sculpture Girl, adorning herself from 1855 was only shown by the sculptor Emil Wolff at the Berlin art exhibition in 1871. The king bought them a year later. Friedrich Wilhelm IV commissioned the David in 1852 from Karl Heinrich Möller , who showed the sculpture at the art exhibition that same year. It had previously been set up in the picture gallery and only came into the loggia in 1861, as did the flax tie that Julius Troschel created in 1851. A seventh figure is no longer available. In the knuckle player created by Carl Johann Steinhäuser in 1844 , the crystalline marble structure dissolved completely. It collapsed and has been considered destroyed since 1979. The picture set up in the loggia in 1861 was a counterpart to the girl with the shell standing in the Raphael Hall today , both of whom came from Sanssouci Palace.
Plant halls
The single-storey plant halls, 103 meters long and 16 meters wide, were given floor-to-ceiling lattice windows on the south side, which were interrupted in the rhythm by two narrow and one wide pillar with a figure niche. Wilhelm I had allegories set up in the niches depicting the months and seasons, all of which were created in the 1860s. In the western plant hall, Ludwig Wilhelm Stürmer produced January and February according to models by Hermann Schievelbein , Eduard Stützel after Schievelbein the March , after Julius Franz the spring , after Schievelbein the April , after Hermann Wittig the May and again after Schievelbein the June . The summer comes from Eduard Mayer. At the eastern plant hall, this program continues from west to east. The July is the work of Julius Francis, who is also the model for subsequent allegories August and September executed provided that Eduard Stützel. The fall of Hermann Wittig join the October to by Schievelbein, made the striker. The figures November , December and Winter were created after models by Julius Franz and were executed by Stützel.
Inside, pillars that reach into the room and are coupled with pilasters support the hall ceiling, which divides the elongated area. The flat ceilings are decorated with square and circular stucco ornaments. Under the brick-paved floor, duct heating ensured a constant temperature of 6 ° to 8 ° C. A second duct led fresh air into the halls. Regardless of the current hot water heating, the old system on the west side is still functional. The plant halls have kept their function since they were built. With a population of more than 1000 potted plants and almost 30 species, the orangery is one of the largest in Europe, along with Vienna and Versailles .
Corner pavilions
The corner pavilions bordering the ends of the plant halls extend over the entire width of the top terrace and form the structural end of this terrace level. Friedrich Wilhelm IV rejected Persius' suggestion to design the pavilions asymmetrically. Alternative plans by Stüler to realize the Villa Madama planned by Raffael on the west side and to copy the building fragment actually erected in Rome on the east side were also not implemented . Based on the king's sketches, Stüler finally designed symmetrically arranged corner pavilions in the shape of two opposing rectangular building blocks. Two double portals in Palladio style connect the building cubes with each other and enclose an open courtyard. The portals were intended as passageways for the Höhenstraße, which, coming from the east, should lead over the top terrace to the Belvedere on the Klausberg, west of the orangery. In the spandrels , reliefs by Friedrich Wilhelm Dankberg take up the program of the allegories in the plant halls. As on the central building, the surrounding parapet is repeated with decorative terracotta vases, which were later replaced by zinc castings. A balcony porch on the ground floor and an overlying balcony on the mezzanine supported by four Ionic columns enliven the facades on the south side. Apartments for court servants and utility rooms were set up on the ground and mezzanine floors.
Interior fittings
The forms of the Italian Renaissance can be found in the interior of the palace in the painting room, the Raphael Hall. The design of the apartments, originally planned exclusively in this style, is combined with wall decorations from antiquity and ornamental forms from the Rococo , according to the king's requests for changes . At the later request of Friedrich Wilhelm IV, the furniture was also furnished in the Rococo style and the interior design shows the revival of this era in the mid-19th century. For the decoration and upholstery fabrics, however, the strong colors of classicism were chosen and not the pastel tones common in Rococo. The original inventory is almost completely preserved. Some pieces of furniture date from the Frederician period, others were made according to models from the 18th century. The parquet floors in the apartments, with various inlaid ornaments made of maple, oak and rosewood, are also from the time of construction due to the low use of space. The same applies to the stucco work carried out by Friedrich Wilhelm Dankberg on the ceilings. Sculptures by artists from the Berlin School of Sculpture in the 19th century testify to the collecting activities of the royal couple, who bought the works at academy exhibitions or brought them back from a trip to Italy. How intensively Friedrich Wilhelm IV was directly involved in the design of the apartments is not documented - only a sketch he made around 1855 for the Raphael Hall has survived. There is evidence of Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse's significant involvement, who made designs for the interior design that Friedrich August Stüler submitted to the King for approval.
Raffael Hall
Friedrich Wilhelm IV took the Sala Regia in the Vatican as a model for the Raffael Hall in the middle of the building. The painting room , which extends over two floors, received a skylight window as a ceiling in the mirror vault , in order to illuminate the wall surfaces and paintings evenly with indirect daylight. Vertical, white and gold-colored ornamented stucco bands divide the vaulted area into fields. These are decorated with ornamented geometric shapes and allegories of Raphael's places of activity, Rome and Florence. The transition between the vault and the wall is formed by a console frieze with groups of figures arranged in pairs. The windowless wall surfaces are clad in black and green marble in the lower area and covered with carmine-red silk damask up to the console . The black-green marble is repeated in the columns and pedestals of the sculptures as well as the floor, on which black-green and white marble slabs are alternately laid diagonally.
The 50 copies of Raphael paintings come partly from the collection of Friedrich Wilhelm III., Which was expanded by further purchases, commissions and gifts from his son and gives an overview of the work of the Renaissance painter. The Sistine Madonna copied from the Dresden original by Friedrich Bury was the first picture in the collection that Friedrich Wilhelm III. Was given as a birthday present by his family in 1804. He commissioned further replicas during his stay in Paris in 1814 on the occasion of the First Peace of Paris , after visiting the Musée Napoléon in the Louvre , where works of art from the countries occupied by the French had been brought together. Before the stolen works of art were returned to their rightful owners, the Prussian king had German-born artists living in Paris make copies for his private apartments. At the time they were made, these copies were regarded as a highly valued replacement for the originals that were rarely available on the art market. Original works, such as those from the Giustiniani collection acquired in 1815 , were intended to furnish the planned, publicly accessible Berlin Gemäldegalerie in order to be able to compete with the holdings of the art collections of other European museums. The replicas in the Raphael Hall are essentially the original size. Only the semicircular frescoes from the Vatican, such as The School of Athens or the section The Group of Bearers of the Sedia gestatoria from the Mass in Bolsena , were made smaller. The copies were made by painters such as Heinrich Lengerich , Carl von Steuben , Carl Joseph Begas , Heinrich Christoph Kolbe , Julius Schoppe , Adolf Senff and Karl Wilhelm Wach . The richly carved gilded frames are partly copied by Jakob Alberty from the original version with the painting. In 1861, the year Friedrich Wilhelm IV died, the collection was expanded to include the copies of St. George with the Sword by an unknown artist and the portrait of Cardinal Bibiena von Begas to 46 paintings. Four more followed by 1865 with the Madonna Conestabile , The Coronation of Mary , a copy of the fresco from the Stanza di Eliodoro in the Vatican The expulsion of the Syrian general Heliodor from the temple and a copy acquired in 1829 by Georg Friedrich Bolte Maria with the blessing child and Saint Jerome and Francis after the original in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie. The Madonna Colonna and Madonna Terranuova are also kept there, copies of which in the Raphael Hall are by an unknown artist and by Bolte.
The preference for Raphael paintings was initially associated with the Romantic era beginning around 1800 , which Raphael elevated to her ideal in the art of painting. But it also corresponded to the purely personal taste of the kings. Although the general enthusiasm for the Renaissance painter had already subsided when the orangery was being built, Frederick William IV united the collection, which was scattered over various castles, in one room, thereby giving it “the character of a monument and protecting it [Raphael's art of painting] from the possible negative consequences of the looming disdain ”due to the change in taste. Two celebrations in honor of the Renaissance painter were certainly not entirely without influence on the decision to merge. A celebratory event on the 300th anniversary of Raphael's death on April 18, 1820 in the Berlin Art Academy and above all an exhibition in March 1848 in the rotunda of the Altes Museum Berlin, in which, among other things, the private collection of Friedrich Wilhelm III. was gathered for the first time.
In addition to paintings, sculptures by contemporary artists were also displayed. The high entrance door on the south side of the hall, which leads to the pillared courtyard, is flanked by the cupbearers of the Olympic deities, Ganymede and Hebe from the workshop of the sculptor Karl Voss . The girl with a shell by Carl Johann Steinhäuser and the expectation of Heinrich Berges symbolize hearing and seeing. Heinrich Maximilian Imhof created the prophetess from the Old Testament Miriam and the group child with dog acquired the royal couple on their trip to Italy from Johann Karl Schultz and the Italian sculptor Luigi Ferrari . In the middle of the Raphael Room, on the back of a sofa that is covered with red silk damask like the walls, two sculptures by Heinrich Berges, Bacchus, teaching Amor to drink, and A boy with a bird and Hercules killing snakes by Julius Troschel, who wrote this work alongside three further showed in 1856 at the Berlin academy exhibition.
The Raffael Hall was open to visitors at all times and is one of the most important museum rooms in Germany with furnishings from the 19th century, as similar painting halls from this period in Munich, Dresden and Berlin have lost their original appearance due to the effects of the war.
East-facing apartment
A small door in the east and west wall of the Raffael Hall leads into the living apartments. The lapis lazuli room adjoining to the east is the anteroom to the malachite room . The name is explained by the dominant blue of the upholstered chairs and curtain fabrics with gold decorations, which have been matched to the color of the blue gem and contrasts strikingly with the white, gold-ornamented wood paneling of the wall surfaces and stucco ceilings. Columns with wide arches divide the room into two halves, the corners of which are rounded in the northern half of the room. Dankberg designed the stucco ornamentation with dancing children above the columns. A pair of children with a laurel wreath symbolizes victory and triumph , a second with a spade and cornucopia symbolizes the fruitful diligence . On the ceiling, four allegorical representations show strength and bravery with a club, prudence and wisdom with the mirror of self-knowledge, justice with tablets of the law and sword, and hope with scroll and pilgrim staff. Flanking depictions of children with palm branches and laurel wreaths symbolize victory and, with torches and flowers, peace . A three-part window in the north wall was given a cornice with a convexly curved central section, which suggests the Palladian motif from the Renaissance. This shape, crowned with an antique palmette , is repeated on the overhang above the door to the external loggia.
In addition to the blue of the fabrics, the color of the real lapis lazuli appears in the top of a round side table with a frame made of gold-plated cast zinc, for which Karl Friedrich Schinkel made the design around 1825. The gem can also be found on two incense burners from a toilet set, which Tsar Alexander I gave to Queen Luise in 1803 . Like these objects, two bronze figures were not originally made for the room. The butterfly catcher by Julius Franz, which Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse acquired for the Paradise Garden in 1851, and the ball player created by August Wittzack in 1842 , come from earlier purchases . A statuette of Friedrich Wilhelm IV, on the other hand, was intended for the establishment of the orangery. It shows the king as an architect with a blueprint in hand. The royal couple ordered the figure, which arrived in Potsdam from Rome in 1860, from Karl Cauer on his trip to Italy .
The adjoining malachite room was intended as a living room and bedroom. As in the Raphael Hall, the wall surfaces are covered with carmine-red silk damask and in the lower area are provided with white lacquered wooden paneling on which gold-framed rectangular fields have been placed. The combination of the golden decoration on a white background is repeated on the ornamented stucco ceiling, in the corners of which allegories depict garden art , astronomy , music and poetry . Fine types of stone came into the room for further decoration. A bed niche is flanked by a column and a pilaster made of dark green marble. A table top, various decorative pieces and the fireplace front in the style of the Second Rococo or Neo- Rococo , which is adorned with gold ornaments and a gold cartouche with an eagle , are made from green malachite . They are also gifts from Russia, such as a 93 cm high crater vase made of Rhodonite , known as the Orlez vase , which Tsar Nicholas I had made in the Ekaterinburg stone cutting shop between 1840 and 1853 . The vessel, which was installed in the cabinet of the picture gallery at the instigation of Friedrich Wilhelm IV. In 1855 , did not enter the Orangery Palace until 1930. The Russian furnishings and the use by the Tsar's widow Alexandra Feodorovna, who only lived in the apartment once, led orangery guides to the erroneous statement since 1957 that the orangery was built as a guest castle for the Tsar couple, but “neither the plans of the time of construction nor contemporary ones or later descriptions mention such an intention. "
Other furnishings include gilded seating with red upholstery and richly decorated, gilded mirrors, as well as paintings and marble sculptures. Heinrich Lengerich made a painting copy of the Raffel fresco The Triumphal Procession of Galatea in the Villa Farnesina in Rome in 1843. Friedrich Wilhelm IV gave the replica to his uncle Wilhelm of Prussia and received it back for his collection after his death in 1851. Another painting shows the view of the Villa Raffael in 1843, which Franz Nadorp painted six years before the siege of Rome by French and Spanish troops and the destruction of the building, as well as the port view created in 1853 by Wilhelm Schirmer . The royal couple themselves are also depicted in two portraits from 1843, which the court painter to the Bavarian King Ludwig I , Joseph Karl Stieler , created.
The marble sculptures in the room show representations from Roman and Greek mythology, including the busts Mars and Adonis by the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen from 1809. After his death in 1844, Carl Johann Steinhäuser took over the workshop. The figure group Hero and Leander comes from him, the first version of which he made in 1848 for the Leander room in Schwerin Castle, where it is now considered lost. A second pair of lovers from ancient mythology, Amor and Psyche by Karl Hassenpflug , acquired Friedrich Wilhelm IV. In 1858 at the Berlin academy exhibition and the sculptor Julius Troschel, who also lives in Rome, created Bacchus in a Basket in 1853 and Sleeping Faun in 1855 . In addition to depictions from ancient mythology, Friedrich Wilhelm IV commissioned a marble group showing two children of his niece Charlotte of Prussia and her husband, George II, Duke of Saxony-Meiningen. The sculptor Ferdinand Müller from Meiningen made the picture of the four-year-old son of the duke couple Bernhard and the two-year-old daughter Maria Elisabeth in 1855 . The origin and identity of another boy figure is unknown.
West-facing apartment
The amber or ivory-colored room adjoining the Raffael Hall to the west was - like the lapis lazuli room on the east side - the anteroom of the apartment. Columns with a wide basket arch also divide the room into two halves. The corners of the room in the northern half of the room are rounded. The ivory-colored wooden paneling of the walls with gold ornaments and amber work on the mirror frames and table tops gave the room its name, which was furnished in the style of Baroque porcelain cabinets. Porcelain figures from the 18th century from the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Berlin are placed on small wall consoles . The playful scenes in the rococo taste of the time were modeled by the later director of the art academy Wilhelm Christian Meyer and his older brother Friedrich Elias , who both worked for the Berlin factory from 1761. After 1945 Nymphenburg porcelain with figures from the Italian Commedia dell'arte by Franz Anton Bustelli was added. Chinese vases from the 18th century indicate the widespread interest in Chinese art during the Rococo, the chinoiserie , which the Second Rococo took up again. They are displayed in gilded étagères with lavish carving, richly decorated gilded seating furniture with purple silk covers is provided. In addition to porcelain works from the Frederician era, contemporary sculptures were displayed, including the marble group Lady with Greyhound by the sculptor Félicie de Fauveau , created in Florence in 1846 .
The adjoining Boulle room served as a living room and study. The wall and ceiling design resembles the Malachite room with its wall surfaces made of red silk damask and the white lacquered wood paneling in the lower area. The gold ornamentation on the white stucco ceiling is, however, a bit simpler. The room is furnished with the eponymous Boulle furniture in the technique of the cabinet maker André-Charles Boulle , who veneered his precious pieces with ebony , ivory , mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell , in which he inlaid metal markers . The furnishing of a room exclusively with Boulle furniture was on the one hand "a phenomenon of the 19th century [...] and to be classified as a facet of historicism, the Neo-Rococo", on the other hand it also corresponded to Friedrich Wilhelm IV's memory of Frederick the Great, the also valued this furniture as a valuable handicraft and had it made to furnish his locks. A desk, the oldest piece of furniture in the facility, dates from the 18th century. A small glass cabinet, seating furniture with red silk damask and an oval table came from Breslau in 1849 and originally stood in Sanssouci Palace, the side wing of which Frederick William IV furnished like the Frederician rooms in the style of the Second Rococo after the enlargement. Templates were probably sent to Wroclaw for the bouller work on the furniture or marked parts were delivered for further processing. “The surface design in the“ genre boules ”(that's the name in the inventory) is included among the finest stones and, like them, was understood as a homogeneous, natural material.” A small cupboard with a curved door was bought for the boules room and came in 1860 from Paris, as well as the upper part of a gilded grandfather clock decorated with ornaments and plastic figures from the 18th century. The painting equipment includes a copy of the Entombment of Christ , based on the original by Raphael's teacher Pietro Perugino , which August Wilhelm Julius Ahlborn painted in 1852 and which has been documented in the Boulle room since 1864. By Eduard Hildebrandt four views of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and a representation from the New Testament with the pond come Bethesda . The artist created the views in 1853 after Friedrich Wilhelm IV had made study trips to the Middle East possible for him in 1851/52. The sculptures include the Girl with Doves by József Engel , which the king acquired in the Hungarian sculptor's Roman studio in 1859, and an antique copy of Niobe made of alabaster that was bought in Pisa .
The wall surfaces of the subsequent green bedroom were again given a white lacquered wood paneling with applied gold ornaments made of classical palmettes and acanthus leaves as well as flower ornaments in the Rococo style. Green silk was chosen for the seating furniture and curtains, from which the quilt was sewn. If necessary, a simple mahogany wood bed with spring and horsehair mattresses was set up in the alcove . The wall surface above the basket arch of the alcove is adorned with an eagle and above it the Hohenzollern coat of arms with a crown, flanked by allegories of victory and power. Cartridges over the doors and gold-framed mirrors show the initials of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. FW IV. R.
Building use
In addition to its horticultural function as a plant hall and the use of the Raphael Hall as a museum, the building also served several times to accommodate guests until the end of the monarchy. The stays of the sister of the king and widow of the Russian Tsar Nicholas I , Alexandra Feodorovna, née Charlotte of Prussia in 1859, Charles I of Romania in 1883, Nāser ad-Dīn Schāh of Persia in 1889, Umberto I of Italy in 1892 are known and the "Atonement" Zaifeng , 2nd Prince Chun, in September 1901, after the Boxer Rebellion in China.
After the First World War and the end of the monarchy, the property of the House of Hohenzollern was initially confiscated by the new government. After the passing of the law on the property dispute between the Prussian state and the members of the formerly ruling Prussian royal house on October 26, 1926 , the Orangery Palace came into the possession of the Prussian state and then into the care of the Prussian state administration founded in 1927 Castles and Gardens . The plant halls were still used for the wintering of the potted plants, the hall and the adjoining rooms of the central building, including the existing inventory, were made accessible as the castle museum and the corner pavilions, as before, were left for residential purposes. Tenants in the 1930s included the pianist and composer Wilhelm Kempff and the art historian and, from 1937, director of the Berlin National Gallery Paul Ortwin Rave .
At the end of the Second World War, the orangery remained largely undamaged during the fighting for Potsdam in April 1945, although the exposed hilltop location of the building posed the risk of artillery fire, which fell victim to the neighboring historic mill in the east and the Belvedere on the Klausberg to the west . In 1949, part of the Brandenburg State Archives, now the Brandenburg State Main Archive , moved into the eastern plant hall, which was available after 1900 after a reduction in the number of potted plants that required a lot of maintenance. In 1989, the increasing amount of archive material made it necessary to move it to a second location, until it was finally relocated to Bornim in 1993 and further material in 2003 . The eastern corner pavilion has since been available to the Brandenburg State Main Archives. After the opening of another location in the Golm Science Park , the Brandenburg State Main Archives finally gave up the orangery as a location in 2010. In the plant hall, the potted plants hibernate again; After extensive renovation work inside the orangery in 1993, the rooms on the mezzanine and upper floors of the central building are used as depot, staff and office space. A gallery has been available in the tower since 1975, in which changing special exhibitions take place; In the west pavilion there are additional exhibition rooms and apartments. The pillared courtyard and the top terrace offer space for open-air concerts of the Potsdam Sanssouci Music Festival and other events.
Outdoor facilities
North side
At the same time as the construction of the orangery, the gardening work was going on on the approximately three hectare area immediately adjacent to the building, which was completed on the north side before construction was completed. A planned water basin with a semicircular bulge going north was never completely excavated, so that it remained with a depression in the ground. In the spring of 1851, the design of the site and the creation of narrow, curved footpaths began. Garden conductor Gustav Meyer and court gardener Emil Sello took over the planting around the planned basin with linden avenues on both sides and other larger trees and bushes on Lenné's behalf. The complex was designed based on a Heraion , a temple dedicated to the Greek goddess Hera. At the edge of the basin bulge, the bust of her counterpart from Roman mythology, Juno Ludovisi , was placed on a high plinth around 1858 . The electroplating work from 1849 comes from Julius Winkelmann's Berlin company and was created in the National Museum in Rome based on the Roman model added by Christian Daniel Rauch in 1842 from the period between AD 30 and 45 . A line of sight leads from the bust to the church and the Bornstedt Crown Estate .
South-facing terraces
Like the architecture, Friedrich Wilhelm IV also sketched the design of the south-facing terraces based on motifs from the garden of the Villa d'Este in Tivoli. After his trip to Italy in 1859, shortly before his death, the king himself corrected the originally generously planned terrace complex with planting in the strictly geometric basic forms of the Renaissance gardens , fountains and sculptures. Friedrich August Stüler developed new designs with reduced dimensions, as they are today . After the preparatory work in 1848/49, the facility was initially dormant because it was dependent on the construction process and could only be completed between 1860 and 1862. The terraces were also decorated more sparingly. Due to his illness, Friedrich Wilhelm IV was no longer able to take care of their equipment and after his death his brother Wilhelm I wanted to finish the project quickly and at low cost.
Upper terrace level
A double flight of stairs connects the terraces on three levels with a height difference of around 4.5 meters. On the upper, 240-meter-long orangery terrace, which protrudes far to the south in the axis to the central building, an elongated water basin with a fountain was excavated in various geometric shapes. The group of figures of the Farnesian bull adorned the southern edge of the pool on a pedestal . The work produced in the Moritz Geiß zinc foundry in Berlin in 1856 , however, fell into disrepair by 1904 and had to be removed. The group was one of the few sculptures that Friedrich Wilhelm IV had designated for this location. Two high columns made of so-called onion marble ( cipollino ) at the corners of the surrounding balustrade, crowned with flora and a pomona made of terracotta, also had to be removed in the 1950s for safety reasons. Today there is a bronze cast of the seated wreath-throwing Viktoria on the western stringer , which was made in 1846 by August Fischer based on a model by Christian Daniel Rauch, and on the parapet near the western corner pavilion there is a zinc cast of Resting Satyr from 1857 from the Potsdam foundry Friedrich Kahle. As a counterpart, there is a bronze cast of the Flying Victoria by August Fischer made in 1836 on the eastern stringer and a marble flora on the parapet near the eastern corner pavilion , which Eduard Stützel created in 1861 based on a design by Ferdinand Hieronymus Schindler . Four marble relief vases with putti scenes on the lawn were only made around 1900 and placed on plinths in 1905. Since 1873 a marble statue in front of the central building has been commemorating the builder Friedrich Wilhelm IV, depicted as a private individual, with a walking stick and hat in hand - an order from his widow Elisabeth Ludovika to Gustav Blaeser . The base is decorated with reliefs with allegories of music , horticulture , sculpture and architecture .
The monument to Friedrich Wilhelm IV replaced a copy of the Germanic princess Thusnelda , which was originally placed in the pillared courtyard of the central building at the request of the king. Albert Wolff made the copy in 1858/59 on the order of the Queen, who had seen this statue in the Florentine Uffizi on her trip to Italy. After the erection of the monument to Friedrich Wilhelm IV. It was first placed on the western side of the terrace and in 1904 in the Sacrow Park . One of the last things was fitted out under Kaiser Wilhelm II , when he had astronomical equipment placed on the top terrace in 1901, which a German expeditionary corps had stolen from China during the Boxer Rebellion. After the First World War, however, they had to be returned in 1920 according to the provisions of the Versailles Peace Treaty .
Middle terrace level
The architect Ferdinand von Arnim , whom Hesse called in to relieve him, took over the design of the balcony . A niche was inserted into the retaining wall on each side and these were framed on the west and east sides with a wall structure in the style of an aedicula . In the west he decorated the wall niche with an electroplated zinc figure, made in Berlin after 1850, of a boy with a jug and a stone sarcophagus from the 1st to 2nd centuries BC decorated with garlands. BC, who, like its counterpart on the east side, came from Smyrna, today's İzmir , in 1856 . In the fountain basin in front of it, a bronze figure of Triton with a shell , created by Franz Woltreck around 1845, was placed. The east side received a zinc cast from the foundry Kahle, Najade with jug , based on a model by Christian Daniel Rauch from 1839, the garland sarcophagus from Smyrna and a copy of the Triton made of zinc. The simpler designed apsid-shaped fountain niche on the south side was equipped with a water-spouting lion head. Two 2.55-meter-high crater vases made of cast zinc, west on the lawn and east of the stairs, also belong to the initial of 1862. The models for the white combined with grapes, foliage and Bacchus heads ornate cast zinc vases, Friedrich Wilhelm Thanks mountain made to the design of Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse. The casting took place in 1848 in the workshop of Siméon Pierre Devaranne .
Lower terrace
A semicircular stone bench, an exedra, was set up on the lowest lawn level, axially to the crater vases. The semicircular staircase leads to the Maulbeerallee, which in this area crosses the anniversary terrace, which was completed in 1913. It was built on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II . After long preliminary planning and various unexecuted drafts, including by Georg Potente , the elliptical shape of the square with its neo-baroque decorations developed after the suggestions of the court architect Albert Geyer and the court garden director Heinrich Zeininger . A double flight of stairs leads to the “New Piece”, a lawn in the shape of a hippodrome that extends south into the Friderizian part of Sanssouci park.
The semicircular ground floor with a moat in front of it is bounded by fourteen thermal baths made of shell limestone , which are connected to one another by festoons made of grapevines. Erich Geiseler created them in neoclassical style in 1928 and replaced sandstone baths from the time of Wilhelm I. On this terrace level, an apsidal fountain niche was set into the retaining wall, which is decorated with a stone relief and five water-spouting wolf heads made of bronze. Two tondi carry a male and a female bacchante head.
Adjacent garden areas
To beautify the area directly adjacent to the terrace complex, Peter Joseph Lenné designed plans for the Paradeisgärt'l, also called Paradiesgärtlein or Paradiesgarten, in the southwest and the Nordic garden in the east. The approximately 2.5 hectare paradise garden was laid out from 1841 according to the wishes of Friedrich Wilhelm IV as an enclosed kitchen garden in the Italian style, in which Hermann Sello had southern crops grown on Lenné's order. The architectural design was carried out between 1841 and 1848 with an atrium that Ludwig Persius designed according to the king's specifications, a pergola along the wall to the Maulbeerallee and a water staircase designed by Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse in 1846. The Paradise Garden is part of the Botanical Garden of the University of Potsdam .
After the demolition of old orangery and greenhouses from the time of Frederick the Great, the Nordic Garden was created according to Lenné's plans in 1860/61 and south of it, on the opposite side of the Mulberry Avenue, the Sicilian Garden, also called Italian Garden , with a Total area of about 2.5 hectares. These garden areas have a north-south gradient. The Nordic garden was planted with evergreen conifers and the Sicilian garden, as a Mediterranean ornamental plant, potted palms and other southern plants as well as sculptural copies of ancient sculptures. Buildings planned in connection with the Höhenstraße project in the Nordic Garden, such as a nymphaeum and a lodging house, were not carried out.
The redesign of the area to the west between the Orangery Castle and the Belvedere on the Klausberg was not carried out. There was a four-row poplar avenue planted in the Frederician era, which led from the Belvedere to the east to the Orangery Palace and the southern slope, which was cultivated for fruit and wine growing. Head gardener Hermann Sello enlarged the garden with further fruit trees in 1827 and Carl Fintelmann laid out a terraced kitchen garden area below the dragon house before 1850 . In the Höhenstraße project, a viaduct up to the Belvedere was planned for this section of the site, with resting and viewing areas in front of it on the south side, as well as a water cascade below the viewing building. A planting with pyramid poplars and elms should create an Italianizing image in the landscape. It was not until the reign of Wilhelm II. Between 1895 and 1905 there were extensive changes on the southern slope, when the Kaiser had three long and several small greenhouses built with steam and hot water heating.
The landscaping of the entire 85 acre site took place between 1902 and 1908. The court garden director Gustav Adolf Fintelmann was entrusted with the planning of the "Drachenberg" project , and in 1904 he entrusted chief gardener Georg Potente with the management of the work. Potente had the poplars from the Frederician times removed and two Crimean linden avenues running parallel from west to east created . A line of sight between the Belvedere and the Orangery Palace was created across the open lawn in the middle. The wide Kronprinzenbrücke was built in 1905/06 to bridge the Kronprinzenweg, which runs along the north side of the Paradise Garden and leads directly to the west side of the Orangery Palace in a cut into the terrain to the northeast. Light soil modeling on both sides of the Krimlindenallee, a planting with shrubs, early bloomers as well as groups of deciduous and coniferous trees on the meadows and boulders from the Saarmunder Heide , should convey a Nordic landscape. In 1945 the decline began. A long greenhouse went to the Soviet Union as reparations and the remaining glasshouses were dismantled so that the metal parts could be used for other purposes. The area later called "Potentestück" in memory of the responsible gardener was visibly overgrown. In 1986, the first restoration work began with the removal of the wild growth. In 1996/97 the landscape got its landscape back as in Wilhelmine times.
Film set
The Orangery Palace in Sanssouci can be recognized as a motif in numerous film and television productions. In 2003 Studio Babelsberg made two international feature films as a co-producer. While in June 2003 the western palm hall and the upper terrace with the triumphal arch served as a backdrop for scenes with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan in the film Around the World in 80 Days , filming for Beyond the Sea followed in November 2003 - music was his life with Kevin Spacey . In 2008, scenes for the remake of the Simmel novel And Jimmy went to the rainbow with Dennenesch Zoudé and Heino Ferch in the leading roles were created in front of the Orangery Palace , while Matthias Brandt climbed the big stairs in the role of Emperor Friedhelm in the ARD fairy tale remake Des Emperor's New Clothes in 2010 stepped down in front of the Orangery Castle. In 2015 published miniseries Germany 83 , an espionage drama of Babelsberg UFA about the NATO - maneuvers during the Cold War and the tense political situation after the NATO double-track decision , meet two HVA -Agenten, played by Alexander Beyer and Jonas Nay , on the parapets the upper terraces for an important exchange of information.
literature
- Robert Bussler: The Rafael Hall. List of copies of paintings by Rafael Sanzio, put up on the highest orders in the royal orangery in Sans-Souci . 2nd edition, Berlin 1861
- Brandenburg State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and the State Archaeological Museum and Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg (Ed.): Peter Joseph Lenné. Parks and gardens in the state of Brandenburg . Wernersche, Worms 2005, ISBN 3-88462-217-X , pp. 228-230
- Henriette Graf: The “Boulle Room” in the Potsdam Orangery . In: Weltkunst , Heft 13, Munich 1999, pp. 2207–2209
- Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg (ed.): The orangery in Sanssouci Park . Official Guide, 2nd edition, Potsdam 2002
- Jörg Wacker: The Triumphal Road Project in Sanssouci , in: Foundation Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg (Ed.): Nothing thrives without care . Catalog for the exhibition in the Orangery in May to August 2001, Potsdam 2001, pp. 148–157
Web links
- SPSG: Orangery Castle
- Orangery Castle ( Memento from November 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (Friederisiko, pdf)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jörg Wacker: The Triumphstrasse Project in Sanssouci . In: SPSG (Hrsg.): Nothing thrives without care , p. 148.
- ↑ a b Jörg Wacker: Sanssouci Park. Gardens at the Orangery Castle . In: Peter Joseph Lenné. Parks and Gardens in the State of Brandenburg , p. 228.
- ^ Eva Börsch-Supan: Ludwig Persius. The diary of the architect Friedrich Wilhelm IV. 1840–1845 . Munich 1980 (Art History Studies, Vol. 51).
- ↑ SPSG: The Orangery in Sanssouci Park , p. 8.
- ↑ SPSG: Extending the orangery plants , accessed on November 26, 2015.
- ↑ SPSG: The Orangery in Sanssouci Park , p. 35.
- ↑ Gerd Bartoschek, in Bussler: The Rafael Hall , p. IV.
- ↑ Julius Troschel . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 33 : Theodotos vacation . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1939, p. 431 .
- ↑ SPSG: The Orangery in Sanssouci Park , p. 28.
- ↑ Burkhardt Göres, in: SPSG: Power and friendship. Berlin - St. Petersburg 1800-1860 , p. 230f.
- ↑ SPSG: The Orangery in Sanssouci Park , p. 17, p. 31.
- ↑ Steinhäuser, Carl Johann . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 31 : Siemering – Stephens . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1937, p. 563 .
- ↑ State Parliament Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Of marble bases and old saddle pads . 8/2005, p. 19, accessed on September 9, 2012.
- ↑ Henriette Graf: The "Boulle Room" in the Potsdam Orangery , p. 2207.
- ^ A b Henriette Graf: The “Boulle Room” in the Potsdam Orangery , p. 2209.
- ↑ SPSG: The Orangery in Sanssouci Park , p. 20.
- ↑ Jörg Kirschstein: Prince compensation ( Memento from March 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) . In: Website of the House of Hohenzollern, accessed on April 28, 2018.
- ^ Armin Hanson: Monument and cityscape maintenance in Potsdam 1918-1945 . Lukas, Berlin 2011, p. 400.
- ^ Wolfgang Feyerabend: Walks through literary Potsdam , p. 89.
- ^ Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Landesverband Brandenburg im VdA - Verband deutscher Archivarinnen und Archivare e. V .: Brandenburg Archives . 28, 2011, p. 63.
- ↑ Peter Joseph Lenné. Parks and Gardens in the State of Brandenburg, p. 233f.
- ↑ Peter Joseph Lenné. Parks and Gardens in the State of Brandenburg, p. 245ff.
- ^ SPSG: Prussian Green. Court gardener in Brandenburg-Prussia . Potsdam 2004, p. 102.
- ↑ SPSG: Der Klausberg , 1st ed. Official Guide, Potsdam 2003, pp. 1–11.
- ↑ Jens Blankennagel: "About 100 times a year film teams use the Potsdam parks as a filming location, but they are not allowed to do everything - Sanssouci plays Istanbul". berliner-zeitung.de , accessed on May 19, 2017 .
- ↑ SPSG, General Directorate Press Office: Press information: Film and television recordings in the SPSG facilities. (PDF) Foundation Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg , accessed on May 19, 2017 .
- ↑ rbb: “The Emperor's New Clothes” was filmed in magical locations in Berlin and Potsdam. rbb-online.de , accessed on May 19, 2017 .
- ↑ PNN / dpa: "Best series comes from Potsdam: Germany 83" awarded an Emmy. Potsdam Latest News , accessed August 6, 2018 .
Coordinates: 52 ° 24 ′ 17.8 " N , 13 ° 1 ′ 46.6" E
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