Pierre de Gayette

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Pierre de Gayette (* 1688 ; † 1747 in Potsdam ) was a German architect of French origin who worked as an engineer captain and court architect under King Friedrich Wilhelm I in Potsdam. Together with Andreas Berger (1698–1748), who was also a captain , Gayette is considered to be the creator of the two city expansions carried out under the “Soldier King”.

biography

Signature of Pierre de Gayette (1736)

There are few references to the origin of de Gayette; his place of birth is also unknown. His father is said to have been Jakob de Gayette from Metz. After the edict of Nantes, he fled to Potsdam.

In 1712 he was named as an engineer- lieutenant and conductor in Wesel . Four years later, he was promoted to engineer captain . In this military rank he held the office of court architect in Potsdam from 1720, where he lived at Mammonstrasse 5 (today's Werner-Seelenbinder-Strasse) and managed the Potsdam building industry together with the Dutch master builder Stegmann . After Stegmann's suicide, presumably due to incorrect accounts, in 1724, Pierre de Gayette was solely responsible for building construction.

From 1720 to 1734 numerous town houses and public buildings were built according to Gayette's plans in Potsdam, which was expanded twice under Friedrich Wilhelm I. First of all, simple half-timbered buildings were erected, which in the following period were often renewed in solid construction. The town hall from 1722 designed by Gayette was replaced by a new building in 1753. In the area of ​​the first city expansion, which began in 1721, a small number of buildings from the time of Friedrich Wilhelm I have been preserved, some of which are attributed to Pierre de Gayette. These town houses, characterized by mansard roofs and an economical plaster structure with pilaster strips and cornices, include the buildings Am Kanal 4 (1724), Henning-von-Tresckow-Straße 9 (1730) and the estate building Breite Straße 9 (around 1724).

In 1726 the electoral office building from the 17th century, which was located on the site of the Slavic ramparts at the eastern end of Potsdam's old town, was demolished. Here, according to Gayette's plans, the simple nave of the Heiliggeistkirche was built , to which the tower designed by Johann Friedrich Grael on the west side was built until 1728 . From 1730 to 1732, Gayette supervised the execution of the Stern hunting lodge , the only palace built under the thrifty "soldier king".

The second baroque expansion of the city of Potsdam began in 1733 and was not yet completed when the king died in 1740. Pierre de Gayette and Andreas Berger are responsible for the designs of the half-timbered type buildings that have been preserved in large numbers, with either massive or exposed facades, while the Dutch Quarter , which is also part of the second city expansion, was built according to plans by Johann Boumann . Gayette is supposed to be responsible in particular for the rows of houses in Lindenstrasse and at Nauener Tor . The attribution of the characterful facade of the large city school built in 1738/1739 on Nauener Strasse (today's Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse) to Gayette is considered uncertain; some authors also name Friedrich Wilhelm Diterichs as the draftsman.

West side of the Long Stable, on the right in the background the Garrison Church

By 1734, in the vicinity of the garrison church, the Lange Stall was built according to Gayette's design , a 150-meter-long riding and drill house in half-timbered construction, the impressive roof structure of which David Gilly mentions as remarkable in his Handbook of Landbaukunst in 1798 . In 1781 the simple building in front of the south gable was given a massive portal facade based on plans by Georg Christian Unger , and in 1785 a new front building to the city ​​canal on the north side, which Unger also designed. The long stable was the only one of the large half-timbered buildings built between 1720 and 1734 that survived into the 20th century. The wooden structure burned down as a result of the air raid on Potsdam on April 14, 1945; only the portal from 1781 has survived to this day.

Pierre de Gayette also worked for Frederick II in the first years of his reign . In 1745 he created a map of Sanssouci and the Höneberg as well as plans for a new pheasant garden west of Sanssouci. He died in Potsdam in 1747. Heinrich Ludwig Manger mentions in his building history of Potsdam the garden house Gayettes, which was still preserved around 1790, which no longer exists: He built a two-story garden house on which a very large sun pointer was attached instead of the upper middle window above the entrance door . The roof was in the Sardinian style, and was decorated with a little tower on which a weather vane stood. It can still be seen from the Brandenburg Gate between the Jägerthore and the road to Sans Souci .

family

He was married twice and had different offspring. His sons all went to the Prussian army:

  • Friedrich (February 22, 1726 - October 13, 1796), captain in Infantry Regiment No. 29
  • Friedrich Leopold († November 3, 1759) Hussar Regiment No. 5, died of the consequences of the wound near Kunersdorf
  • Siegmund Wilhelm Heinrich (* 1733) father of Major General Karl Ludwig von Gayette
  • Karl Adam († October 20, 1803), Major a. D.

Web links

Commons : Pierre de Gayette  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b After: Kurt von Priesdorff : Karl Ludwig Ferdinand von Gayette . In: Soldatisches Führertum . Volume 5, Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, undated [Hamburg], undated [1938], DNB 367632802 , pp. 322-323, no. 1572.
  2. ↑ Ruebezahl: the Silesian Provincial leaves, 1796, Volume 24, S.425 memorial
personal data
SURNAME Gayette, Pierre de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gayette, Peter de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect
DATE OF BIRTH 1688
DATE OF DEATH 1747
Place of death Potsdam