Marmorpalais
Encyclopedia
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....
, eastern Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, built on the grounds of the extensive Neuer Garten on the shores of Lake Heiliger See. The palace was commissioned by Frederick William II of Prussia
Frederick William II of Prussia
Frederick William II was the King of Prussia, reigning from 1786 until his death. He was in personal union the Prince-Elector of Brandenburg and the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel.-Early life:...
and designed in the early classicist
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
style by the architects Carl von Gontard
Carl von Gontard
Carl von Gontard was a German architect; he worked primarily in Berlin, Potsdam, and Bayreuth....
and (from 1789) Carl Gotthard Langhans
Carl Gotthard Langhans
Carl Gotthard Langhans was a Prussian builder and architect. His works are among the earliest buildings in the German classicism movement. His best-known work is the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.- Life :...
, designer of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate
Brandenburg Gate
The Brandenburg Gate is a former city gate and one of the most well-known landmarks of Berlin and Germany. It is located west of the city centre at the junction of Unter den Linden and Ebertstraße, immediately west of the Pariser Platz. It is the only remaining gate of a series through which...
.
Description
The Marmorpalais was reserved for the private use of the king, who had an artistic temperament. With this new construction the nephew and successor of Frederick the GreatFrederick II of Prussia
Frederick II was a King in Prussia and a King of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also Elector of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...
dissociated himself from his childless uncle, whom he disliked and who favored earlier Baroque
Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...
and Rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
forms.
The red brick
Brick
A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...
Marmorpalais was originally a two-story square building. A fine view of the surrounding gardens and lakes is possible from a round pavilion on the flat roof of the cubical structure. Among other buildings, the little castle on the Pfaueninsel in the Havel River was constructed as an eye-catcher. A stairway and gallery accessed from the roof lead into the belvedere
Belvedere (structure)
Belvedere is an architectural term adopted from Italian , which refers to any architectural structure sited to take advantage of such a view. A belvedere may be built in the upper part of a building so as to command a fine view...
. Sculptured putti
Putto
A putto is a figure of an infant often depicted as a young male. Putti are defined as chubby, winged or wingless, male child figure in nude. Putti are distinct from cherubim, but some English-speakers confuse them with each other, except that in the plural, "the Cherubim" refers to the biblical...
carrying a basket of fruit decorate the tip of the pavilion. The palace got its name from the grey and white Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
n marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
used for the decorative elements and partitioning structures.
Boat moorings could be approached by members of the court via a large terrace on the lake side of the palace, from which a stairway led down to the water. The king enjoyed extensive boat rides; even Charlottenburg Palace
Charlottenburg Palace
Charlottenburg Palace is the largest palace in Berlin, Germany, and the only royal residency in the city dating back to the time of the Hohenzollern family. It is located in the Charlottenburg district of the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf burough.The palace was built at the end of the 17th century...
on the Spree River in Berlin could be reached by boat from here.
On the nearby lake shore is to be found the palace kitchen, which was built 1788-1790 by Langhans in the romantic style of a half-sunken classical temple ruin. An underground corridor provides a connection with an artificial grotto
Grotto
A grotto is any type of natural or artificial cave that is associated with modern, historic or prehistoric use by humans. When it is not an artificial garden feature, a grotto is often a small cave near water and often flooded or liable to flood at high tide...
on the ground floor of the palace which served as a dining room in summertime.
After only a few years of use the palace was considered to be too small, and in 1797 construction started on two side wings designed by Michael Philipp Boumann. The architect connected these single-story, rectangular extensions to the right and left of the main entrance on the garden side of the palace with galleries in the form of quarter circles. The marble required to decorate these extensions was obtained by removing Frederich II’s colonnades from Park Sanssouci and incorporating the pillars in the new building. This imposing garden architecture designed by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff
Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff
Hans Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff was a painter and architect in Prussia.Knobelsdorff was born in Kuckädel, now in Krosno Odrzańskie County. A soldier in the service of Prussia, he resigned his commission in 1729 as captain so that he could pursue his interest in architecture...
had originally stood on the main boulevard connecting Sanssouci Palace and the New Palace
New Palace
New Palace can refer to:* The former name of Topkapı Palace in Istanbul after its completion * New Palace...
.
When the king died in November 1797, just the shell of the extensions had been completed. His son and successor, Friedrich Wilhelm III, being uninterested in the project, only finished off the exterior.
This was still the situation in the 1830s when Prince Wilhelm, later Kaiser Wilhelm I, and his spouse Augusta moved into the Marmorpalais while they awaited the completion of their new residence at Babelsberg Palace
Potsdam-Babelsberg
Babelsberg is the largest district of the Brandenburg capital Potsdam in Germany. The affluent neighbourhood named after a small hill on the Havel river is famous for Babelsberg Palace and Park, part of the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as for Studio...
(1833-1835-1849). His brother, King Frederick William IV of Prussia
Frederick William IV of Prussia
|align=right|Upon his accession, he toned down the reactionary policies enacted by his father, easing press censorship and promising to enact a constitution at some point, but he refused to enact a popular legislative assembly, preferring to work with the aristocracy through "united committees" of...
, known as “a royal nostalgic romanticist”, commissioned the architect Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse to complete the unfinished interior structure and fittings for the two side extensions between 1843 and 1848. Frescos with scenes from the Niebelung saga
Nibelungenlied
The Nibelungenlied, translated as The Song of the Nibelungs, is an epic poem in Middle High German. The story tells of dragon-slayer Siegfried at the court of the Burgundians, how he was murdered, and of his wife Kriemhild's revenge....
were added to the outside to decorate the colonnade walls.
The building's technical and sanitary facilities were updated when Prince Wilhelm, later Kaiser Wilhelm II, and his family lived in the Marmorpalais from 1881 until he acceded to the throne in 1888.
The last royal inhabitants of the Marmorpalais were William, German Crown Prince, eldest son of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and his spouse Cecilie, who lived there between 1904 and 1917, when they moved to nearby Cecilienhof
Cecilienhof
Schloss Cecilienhof is a palace in the northern part of the Neuer Garten park in Potsdam, Germany, close to the Jungfernsee lake. Since 1990 it is part of the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin UNESCO World Heritage Site....
Palace, built for them in the Neuer Garten.
When World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and along with it the German monarchy came to an end, the Marmorpalais was placed under the control of the Prussian palaces administration in 1926 as a result of a settlement between the Prussian state and the Hohenzollern family regarding property claims. It opened as a palace museum in 1932.
The restored interior furnishings from the 18th and 19th centuries in the main building and south wing and the original plans for the Neuer Garten and the views of Potsdam displayed in the north wing were seriously damaged when the north wing was hit by an incendiary bomb and the main building by a grenade at the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Further damage occurred when the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
maintained an officers’ mess in the palace after 1946.
In 1961 the East German GDR Army Museum was established in the building. Inside, historic military equipment, uniforms and historic documents were on display and on the outside, canon, a T-34 tank, a high-speed patrol boat, a MiG fighter airplane and a rocket. The weapons were removed in 1989.
Starting in 1984, the National People’s Army made plans for a fundamental restoration as the building continued to fall into disrepair. These plans came to fruition in 1988 and the work continued in late autumn 1990 after the return of the property to the palaces administration. Since April 14, 2006 all 40 rooms have been renovated and opened to the public. Repair of the exterior surface was completed in autumn 2009 after several years of restoration work.
The interior rooms
Beginning in 1790, Carl Gotthard Langhans was commissioned with designing the interior rooms. Marble fireplaces and antique sculpture were a prominent feature in decisions about the decorative furnishings; these had been purchased in Italy for the Marmorpalais by the architect Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff. This Saxon nobleman, who was already famous for planning and executing early Classicism style buildings in Dessau-Wörlitz, had been invited to work in Berlin in 1787.On the ground floor of the main building there is a vestibule
Vestibule (architecture)
A vestibule is a lobby, entrance hall, or passage between the entrance and the interior of a building.The same term can apply to structures in modern or ancient roman architecture. In modern architecture vestibule typically refers to a small room or hall between an entrance and the interior of...
leading to a stairway extending the entire height of the building. Behind it is a large room designed as a grotto and used in the summertime as a dining room. This room is situated on the eastern side of the palace and faces the lake. Because of its shady location and the calm, cool effect of its greyish blue marble paneling its occupants enjoyed a pleasant room climate. On either side of this middle axis there were six private rooms serving as royal living quarters.
Upstairs, the rooms are grouped around the central marble stairway. The largest room, the concert hall, extended across the entire lake side of the palace. It was later used as a salon during the reign of the German Kaisers. The furnishings and decorative architecture of the rooms reflected a taste for Classicism, the only exception being the so-called Oriental cabinet on the upper floor, which Langhans designed as a Turkish tent with a divan
Divan (furniture)
A divan is a piece of couch-like sitting furniture; or in the UK, a box-spring based bed....
.
The Marmorpalais is closely associated with Wilhelmine Enke
Wilhelmine von Lichtenau
Wilhelmine, Gräfin von Lichtenau, born as Wilhelmine Enke, also spelled Encke, , was the official mistress of King Frederick William II of Prussia from 1769 until 1797 and was elevated by him into the nobility...
(also spelled Encke), known popularly as “Beautiful Wilhelmine”. As Friedrich Wilhelm II’s royal mistress she had a great influence on the interior decoration of the palace; in 1796 she was made Countess Lichtenau. Following plans by Michael Philipp Boumann a townhouse, Lichtenau Palace, was erected for her in an early classicist style at the edge of the Neuer Garten, in what is today Behlertstrasse in Potsdam.