Garzau pyramid
The Garzau pyramid is the largest field stone pyramid in Germany. It is located in Garzau, a district of the municipality of Garzau-Garzin in the Märkisch-Oderland district in Brandenburg .
history
The pyramid is part of an overall facility, consisting of Garzau Castle and the associated landscape park. Friedrich Wilhelm Carl Graf von Schmettau laid out the park from 1779; the pyramid was built in 1784 and could originally have served the count as a mausoleum. However, he sold the property in 1802. In 1911 the predecessor building of the castle, the Garzau manor, burned down. While the castle was being rebuilt, the pyramid fell into disrepair. Because of its appearance, the building was called the “knight's castle” in the village. It wasn't rediscovered until 1999. A year later, the Friends of Pyramid und Schloßpark Garzau e. V. , uncovered the structure and rebuilt it between 2000 and 2010 mainly from its own resources. Today, the interior is largely in its original condition.
architecture
The pyramid was erected on a hill in the landscape park. Garden plans from the construction period lead to the conclusion that it must have been in the center of the park. Furthermore, several invisible lines can be seen, which do not correspond to any visual axis , but in their extension point to church towers in neighboring places, for example. This suggests that the pyramid was not used as a mausoleum, but as a building for cartographic observations by the count.
The building - with its pyramid as its basic shape - reflected the zeitgeist of the 18th century. Egypt moved into the interest of the powerful in Europe, and so foreign architecture also flowed into the newly constructed buildings of this time. The pyramid is 44 Prussian feet (13.80 meters) high and has a square plan. The exterior was built from uncut field stones . You enter the building through a portal that is reminiscent of a Greek temple. It consists of light sandstone and is thus clearly different from the gray field stone. The architrave is decorated with triglyphs and metopes and thus belongs to the Doric order . This creates a reference to ancient architecture, as does the tympanum decorated with a tooth cut . The original of the portal was transferred to the Marienkirche in Strausberg in 1815 by the inspector of the Strausberg country poor house Haberkorn . This is indicated by the "H" and the year "1815" in the tympanum. The portal on the pyramid that exists today with its oak door is a replica. Behind it there is an arched anteroom with an opaion . If you step further into the building, you reach the main hall. It is crowned by a smaller cupola with four arched openings placed on top. An opaion connects the two floors. Through the openings in the dome, indirect light falls through the opaion into the main hall. Five of the ten sandstone rings from the ceiling eye were found during the restoration and reinstalled. To improve the statics, a reinforced concrete structure was added over the upper dome during the construction phase. The inner diameter as well as the height of the main hall are identical at 5.9 meters and thus create a harmonious space . This can also be found, for example, in the Pantheon in Rome. The main hall has an octagonal floor plan with sides of equal length. In the niches there were allegorical figures that no longer exist. The walls were plastered and painted.
In the base of the building, two chambers were uncovered during the restoration work on the east and west sides, which had been broken open. They were then closed again. Three entrances were uncovered on the north side. The middle one leads into an underground vault. Its purpose is unclear, it could have served as a tomb.
The building has symmetrically arranged ramps and stairs made of red brick, which can be used to get to the top of the building from the outside. In the lower area these were still present, in the upper area they were already missing when the pyramid was exposed. They were also reconstructed true to the original using old views. For security reasons the entrance is closed to visitors. A vedute from 1790 shows a railing on the stairs. The top of the pyramid is crowned by a pavilion. Vines are grown again today on the hill of the pyramid.
The architect of the building is not known. However, assumptions lead to the conclusion that it could have been Carl Gotthard Langhans , the architect of the Brandenburg Gate. For example, he designed an ice cellar in the shape of a pyramid in the New Garden of Potsdam for Friedrich Wilhelm II . There is a drawing by Langhans from 1784 for a portal that has a striking resemblance to the portal in Garzau. There was also a connection to Carl Heinrich August von Lindenau , who also had a pyramid built under the direction of Langhans in his landscape garden in Machern .
Portal Carl Gotthard Langhans , drawing 1784
Ruin, 1999
Securing with roof 2003
Construction of the pavilion roof, 2009
See also
literature
- Werner Hartke: Garzau, historical-critical analyzes and representations for the Berlin Enlightenment. In: Miniatures on the history, culture and monument preservation of Berlin. Kulturbund der DDR, Berlin 1982, p. 80
- Pückler Society (ed.), Werner Hartke, Leopold von Reichenbach: Some remarks about the gardens in the Mark Brandenburg (communications from the Pückler Society). 7th issue 1991, Kahmann-Druck, Berlin, 1991, p. 134
- Christian Reimann: The English garden of Garzau. A contribution to its interpretation. GARTENkunst , Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 1/2000, pp. 63–73, ISSN 0935-0519
- Jürgen Reimann: The pyramid in the landscape garden Garzau and the will of its builder Friedrich Wilhelm Carl von Schmettau. Findling Verlag, 1st edition 2010, ISBN 978-3-933603-46-3 , p. 96
- Culture and Tourism Office Märkische Schweiz: The pyramid in Garzau. Flyer, 2010
Web links
- Pyramide Garzau , website of the Friends' Association, accessed on May 25, 2014.
- Mini-tour to Garzau with a report about the pyramid , ARD media library, accessed on May 25, 2014.
Coordinates: 52 ° 32 ′ 19.1 ″ N , 13 ° 56 ′ 41.5 ″ E