Triumphal Gate (Potsdam)

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Triumphal Gate with a view of the winegrower's house

The Triumphtor on Mühlenberg stands on the corner of Schopenhauerstraße / Weinbergstraße in the north of Potsdam and represents the entrance portal of the Winzerberg . It was built in 1850/51 under the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV and was intended to mark the beginning of a planned but never realized Triumphstraße Show. The architects Friedrich August Stüler and Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse produced the designs for the portal .

Building history

The construction of the Triumphal Gate is related to a high road project, a triumphal road, which should connect the existing and planned lookout and palace buildings on the northern edge of the Sanssouci Park . Mainly for financial reasons, only a few sections of the project could be implemented, including the orangery castle , the winegrower's house in the Italian style based on designs by Hesse and the triumphal gate. A temple complex planned on the Mühlenberg in memory of Frederick the Great , to which the gate should form the entrance area, was not implemented.

architecture

As a model, Friedrich Wilhelm IV chose the Argentarian Arch at the Forum Boarium in Rome, which the college of money changers and cattle dealers had donated in AD 204, presumably in honor of the emperor Septimius Severus . The architrave building was partially incorporated into the church building in the 12th century when the church of San Giorgio in Velabro was expanded .

Furnishing

Relief images on the inside of the triumphal gate

The Potsdam Triumphal Gate is richly decorated. With its combination of shaped stones and terracotta reliefs, it represents a high point of the brick building art of the Schinkel School . The ceramics come from the workshops of Tobias Feilner and Ernst March , the sculptors Hermann Schievelbein and Gustav Bläser formed them based on models by Friedrich Wilhelm Dankberg .

An inscription on the front above the passage provides a reference to the eastern part of the park and the Sanssouci Palace, which begins on the opposite side of the street:

Friedrich Wilhelm IV. K. v. P. ordered this gate to be built a hundred and six years after Sans-Souci was founded. MDCCCLI

Friedrich Wilhelm IV dedicated the triumphal gate to his brother Wilhelm (I) after he had put down the Baden uprising in the summer of 1848. This is indicated by an inscription above the passage on the vineyard side:

In honor of the Prince of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig, the general, the leaders and warriors who defeated the riot in the Rhine Palatinate and in Baden . MDCCCXLIX

Relief images

The relief pictures by Hermann Schievelbein on the inside of the Triumphal Gate represent the exodus of the warriors and the return of the victorious army. The works of Gustav Bläser show allegories : on the garden side the architecture, the sculpture, the painting and the poetry, on the front the Strength, Justice, Moderation and Wisdom.

In the years 1998 to 2000, the triumphal gate was gradually restored. The artist Peter Dietrich , who lives in Falkensee , carried out the work on the terracotta reliefs .

Allegorical panels

Allegorical figure of the railway
Allegorical figure of telegraphy

The two relief panels by Friedrich Wilhelm Dankberg on the front of the gate are symmetrical. The female figures are shown in antique robes. Both figures have wings and attributes that reveal their purpose.

Allegory railway

The figure holds a burning torch in his left hand as a symbol of the fire that produces the steam power in the boiler of the locomotive , which enables rapid movement. In the hand of the outstretched right arm she holds a winged wheel, which, like the mileage column indicated on the left edge of the picture , represents the distance that can be covered with the new means of transport. The winged wheel, which appears here for the first time as a symbol of things , has since become “a worldwide symbol for the railroad”.

Allegory of telegraphy

In the background you can see three insulator rods connected by a lightning-flashed telegraph wire. The right hand of the figure points to the isolator bell, while the left points into the distance and thus, like its counterpart, represents the distance that this new technology can overcome.

interpretation

In a way that is unique for this time, the two allegories point to telegraphy and the railroad and connect the modern present of industrialization with the ancient past . The two panels show two technical achievements that fifteen years later enabled the invention of modern warfare under Count von Moltke and thus lead to the successes in the Austro -Prussian War in 1866 and in the Franco-German War 1870–71.

literature

  • General management of the Foundation Palaces and Gardens Potsdam-Sanssouci (Ed.): Potsdam Palaces and Gardens. Building and gardening art from the 17th to the 20th century. Castles and Gardens Foundation and Potsdamer Verlagbuchhandlung , Potsdam 1993, ISBN 3-910196-14-4 , p. 244
  • Sabine Bohle-Heintzenberg, Manfred Hamm: Architecture and Beauty. The Schinkel School in Berlin and Brandenburg. Transit, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-88747-121-0
  • Katharina Lippold: The terracotta sculpture in the park of Sanssouci under Friedrich Wilhelm IV. In: Foundation Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg. Jahrbuch 1 (1995/1996), p. 95 ( digitized on perspectivia.net , accessed on February 22, 2013)
  • Jan Mende: The Tobias Chr. Feilner pottery factory in Berlin. Art and Industry in Schinkel's Age. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-422-07207-7 , p. 426f.

Web links

Commons : Triumphal Gate  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Foundation Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg (Ed.): Buildings and gardens of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin". Sanssouci Park, Potsdam . P. 24, as of June 30, 2016.
  2. 50 years for two - and that without a fight! in: www.deutschland-im-internet.de. Retrieved March 11, 2020.
  3. ^ A b Ernst-Ekkehard Kornmilch: The impeller from Sanssouci . In Modelleisenbahner , 5/1993, p. 10 f.

Coordinates: 52 ° 24 ′ 11.4 "  N , 13 ° 2 ′ 40.6"  E