City Palace: A Former Royal Residence and Parliamentary Seat in Potsdam
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- German, Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Prussia, Margraviate of Brandenburg
- Site type
- Civic
- Remains
- Palace
On this page22 sections
History
City Palace, also known as Potsdam City Palace, is a former royal residence in Potsdam, Germany, whose reconstructed building now houses the Parliament of Brandenburg. The complex developed from a medieval defensive site into a seventeenth-century early Baroque palace and was transformed again into a major Frederickian Rococo residence in the eighteenth century.
From Fort to Renaissance Residence
A fort stood beside the Havel when Potsdam was first mentioned in 993. It protected the settlement of Poztupimi and a crossing through the shallow river, where a wooden footbridge later became Potsdam’s first bridge. After the Askanian expansion into Brandenburg in 1157, the fort helped control regional movement and routes.
During the first half of the thirteenth century, a stone castle with a square tower replaced the earlier timber-and-earth fort. After Potsdam received town rights in 1345, defensive walls with four corner towers enclosed the castle. The site was called a Castrum in 1375. Repeated pledging of the Potsdam estate weakened the complex, although it remained associated with hunting.
In 1598, Elector Joachim Frederick gave the estate to his wife Catherine. She ordered the medieval castle to be demolished and replaced by a permanent Renaissance residence. The new building, known as the Katharinenbau, was completed in early 1599, but the wider project remained incomplete after Catherine’s early death. When her successor Eleonore also died young, Joachim Frederick lost interest in Potsdam and moved to Joachimsthal in 1606. The unfinished residence was later leased to Wolf Dietrich von Hacke, who used it as a sheep stable and barn.
The Early Baroque Palace
The Thirty Years’ War caused further damage to the complex. Elector Frederick William, later called the Great Elector, repeatedly tried to recover the Potsdam estate and castle. His interest was encouraged by hunting and by the gardens created by his governor Johann Maurice of Nassau-Siegen at Cleves.
Between 1662 and 1674, Frederick William commissioned a new palace under Johann Gregor Memhardt. Its early Baroque design drew on Dutch palace architecture, including the palace of Honselaarsdijk. The planned relocation of the court to Potsdam required major enlargement and the demolition of several citizens’ houses. Their owners received compensation only years later. From 1671, the elector stayed at the palace regularly and then permanently.
The residence continued to expand. Between 1679 and 1682, Michael Matthias Smidts extended the wings and completed them with a semicircular gallery and a central gate. Johann Arnold Nering designed an orangery west of the palace in 1685. On 8 November that year, Frederick William issued the Edict of Potsdam from the palace. It supported people persecuted for their faith and contributed to the settlement of about 20,000 French Huguenot immigrants in Brandenburg.
Royal Alterations and the Prussian Court
The palace became the property of Frederick III of Brandenburg in 1688. After his coronation as King Frederick I in Prussia in 1701, the complex was altered to express its royal status. These works included the Fortuna Portal. The palace hosted court festivities and balls, as well as the Three Kings’ Meeting in July 1709, attended by the rulers of Prussia, Poland, and Denmark.
Frederick William I became king in 1713. He kept the palaces at Potsdam and Berlin while selling or leasing most of his other residences. The City Palace became his principal home, although he treated it chiefly as a family residence rather than as a political monument. In 1714, part of the pleasure garden was converted into a parade ground. The orangery became royal stables, and a wine store was installed in the palace basement in 1726.
Frederick II became king in 1740 and decided in 1743 and 1744 to make Potsdam his principal residence. He commissioned Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff to remodel the palace between 1744 and 1751. The project changed the complex into a major example of Frederickian Rococo, the refined eighteenth-century Rococo associated with Frederick II’s court. It affected the gardens, the Ringer Colonnade, the royal apartments, the grand staircase, the theater, guest rooms, and the external facades.
Frederick II used the palace as his winter residence after establishing Sanssouci as his summer residence. The former palace chapel had been given to the Potsdam Huguenots in 1735. In 1752, guest apartments replaced the chapel, while the Huguenots received the French Church.
Later Royal Use
Frederick William II, who ruled from 1786, disliked the palace’s Baroque and Rococo character and occupied the Marble Palace instead. He gave his City Palace apartments to his sons Frederick William and Louis. After marrying Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the crown prince retained the palace. When he became Frederick William III in 1797, he began alterations in 1799 that substantially changed the Frederickian interiors.
Frederick William IV lived in the palace during his reign from 1840 to 1861. His plans to remodel the Lustgarten facade were not carried out because of his illness. Under later rulers, the building served mainly representational purposes. Around 1900, it opened to visitors for an entrance fee and was presented largely unchanged.
William II’s abdication in November 1918 ended the monarchy, and the palace passed into state ownership. It lost its residential function and was used by municipal authorities, the employment office, the magistrate, and the city assembly. Rooms were also assigned to artists, biographers, and the Potsdam Art Association. The former royal stables housed the Potsdam Garrison Museum from 1922. Rooms associated with Queen Louise were restored and opened to visitors in 1932. In 1940, the palace exterior was used as a filming location for the fairy-tale film Rumpelstiltskin.
Destruction and Demolition
On 14 April 1945, a British air raid caused the palace to burn out. Much of the movable interior furnishing had already been evacuated, but the fire destroyed almost all fixed interior decoration. Limited remains survived in the Marble Hall and staircase. Most of the structural fabric and architectural sculpture remained standing, and an assessment found that 83 percent of the surviving walls were structurally sound.
After prolonged disagreement among architects, planners, cultural officials, preservationists, and the district leadership of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling communist party of the German Democratic Republic, the party’s Politburo decided in May 1959 to demolish the ruin. Demolition and blasting continued from late 1959 to April 1960. Much of the rubble was used to raise the nearby Lustgarten.
Potsdam residents, architects, and preservationists opposed the demolition. Fifteen architects and engineers from the municipal planning office argued that it lacked urban-planning justification and would damage the city’s architectural harmony. A multi-lane road and major junction were later built partly over the site, while the importance of the Alter Markt declined.
Reconstruction and Parliamentary Use
More than 350 facade and surrounding-area elements were saved during and after the demolition. Parts of the Ringer Colonnade, pediments, facade fragments, sculptures, and furnishings were moved or deposited elsewhere. Eight attic figures were installed on buildings of Humboldt University in Berlin and on the rebuilt Old Town Hall. Furniture and interior fittings were displayed at Charlottenburg Palace and the New Palace.
A theater begun on the former palace site in the late 1980s was demolished in 1991 after German reunification. Opposition to the unpopular late East German project and concern that it would obstruct the view of St. Nicholas Church helped bring about its removal. From 1997, surviving sandstone columns, pilaster fragments, cornices, and other elements were examined, measured, and assigned to their original contexts.
Archaeological investigations began around the former foundations and cellars in 2001. Later work, completed in January 2011, covered about 15,000 square meters. It revealed Neolithic graves, a Germanic settlement with evidence of iron smelting and cultivation, and a medieval defensive system with a wooden tower and ditch. The investigations also added information about the palace complex from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Foundations covering about 3,000 square meters were found to be in very good technical condition.
In 1999, Potsdam’s city council resolved to reconstruct the palace close to its historic volume and shape for public use. The first visible reconstruction was the Fortuna Portal, begun in 2000 and completed in 2002 with surviving fragments, traditional building techniques, and civic and private support. On 20 May 2005, the Brandenburg Parliament decided to construct a new parliamentary building on the historic site, and Peter Kulka was selected as architect. A public consultation in November and December 2006 recorded greater support for the former palace site than for a new building in Potsdam’s Speicherstadt.
The project combined a modern parliamentary interior with historically reconstructed external forms. Support from Hasso Plattner’s foundation helped restore the historic facades and reuse original elements. Another donation allowed the roof to be clad in copper rather than zinc. Construction began ceremonially on 25 March 2010, the foundation stone was laid on 16 February 2011, and the building was handed over to the Brandenburg Parliament on 10 October 2013. It was formally inaugurated on 21 January 2014.
The reconstructed palace is designed for approximately 150 members of the Brandenburg Parliament, the elected legislature of the German federal state. Its historical role therefore changed from royal residence to modern parliamentary building. The west facade bears the inscription Ceci n’est pas un château, referring to René Magritte’s The Treachery of Images and emphasizing that the building now serves as a parliament rather than as a royal palace. Restoration and reconstruction of the surviving sculpture have continued through private donations, with figures and groups returned to the facades between 2016 and 2020 and further work continuing through 2022.
Remains
Historic Site and Palace Layout
The historic palace occupied the area between the Alter Markt to the north and the Lustgarten and Havel to the south. It was the largest building in Potsdam and formed part of an urban ensemble with the Alter Markt, Marstall, Lustgarten, and surrounding pleasure palaces. The earliest defensive complex consisted of a timber-and-earth fort, followed by a square stone castle with a tower and then enclosing walls with four round corner towers.
Renaissance Residence
Catherine’s Renaissance residence occupied the surviving defensive enclosure. The Katharinenbau was about 60 metres long and 14 metres wide, with three floors, a central stair tower on its main facade, and 38 rooms. A large dining room occupied the second floor, and a chapel was added later.
Baroque Palace
Memhardt’s palace was a four-wing complex surrounded by a moat. Its three-story principal residential block contained a central projecting section with a hall extending through two floors and two flanking pavilions. Lower two-story wings enclosed the court of honor and ended in corner pavilions. A low boundary wall enclosed the Lustgarten. The main interior spaces included the Great Hall and Marble Hall, while the former Drap d’argent Chamber was probably the death room of the Great Elector before it was remodeled as the Yellow Parade Chamber.
Frederickian Interiors and Sculpture
Knobelsdorff’s remodeling created a sequence of richly decorated rooms and ceremonial spaces. The courtyard staircase, built or remodeled between 1746 and 1748, was clad in Silesian marble. Its decoration included stucco reliefs of ancient mythological subjects, four Atlantes, groups of figures, a bronze railing, and Antoine Pesne’s ceiling painting Peace Brings Happiness to the Peoples. Figures of Mars and Venus were made by Friedrich Christian Glume.
Marble Hall
The Marble Hall was redesigned between 1749 and 1752 as a memorial and honorific space for the Great Elector. Its decoration included stucco figures and picture frames associated with Andreas Schlüter and a ceiling painting by Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo showing the Great Elector’s elevation to Olympus. Reliefs referred to the capture of Stralsund and the battles of Fehrbellin and Warsaw. Large marble figures of the Orange rulers William I, Maurice, Frederick, Henry, and William III were made by Franz Dusart.
Royal Apartments
The Bronze Hall, created in 1754 and 1755, had white wood paneling, mirrors, and bronze applications. Johann Melchior Kambly made its bronze console tables and wall lights. The Concert Room, created around 1744, had green walls, gilded carving, and colorful chinoiserie by Johann Samuel Nahl. It contained a music stand by Kambly and a piano by Gottfried Silbermann. Johann Sebastian Bach played the piano before Frederick II in May 1747.
A bedroom created in 1745 and 1746 had blue and silver wall coverings, an alcove, seating furniture, and library cabinets. The Confidence Table Room, made between 1748 and 1750, had a gilded stucco ceiling and red velvet wall coverings with gold trim. The Writing Cabinet, created around 1755, contained carved floral decoration, blue velvet seating, and furniture with bronze and tortoiseshell details. Its bronze heating installation took the form of a dragon’s head, and the room overlooked the Petitioners’ Lime Tree associated with Frederick the Great’s reception of petitions.
The Audience Room also served as Frederick II’s Rococo throne room. Frederick William III remodeled it between 1799 and 1804 with imitation marble, new ceilings, and scenes from Oberon. Its blue silk furnishings gave it the name Blue Parade Chamber. The former Great Concert Room was used by Frederick II for flute concerts and later served as a bedroom for Alexander I in 1805, Napoleon in 1806, and Nicholas I in 1818.
Theater and Neoclassical Rooms
Frederick II inserted a two-story theater into the east-wing head building. Although unfinished, it opened in March 1748. Its semicircular seating followed an ancient model, and performances included French comedies, Italian operas, and ballets. In 1803, the theater was replaced by living quarters for the expanding royal family and staff. Between 1802 and 1804, Frederick William III converted another suite into Etruscan-style Neoclassical reception and living rooms.
Queen Louise’s apartment included an antechamber, dining room, yellow room, blue room, writing cabinet, and bedroom. These rooms were reconstructed in 1932. The Yellow Salon contained yellow wall covering and two console tops from the antiquities collection acquired by Frederick II from Cardinal Melchior de Polignac.
Attic Figures and Architectural Fragments
The palace carried a large sculptural program that included 76 oversized sandstone attic figures, made mainly between 1744 and 1752. Many represented figures from Greek and Roman mythology and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Minerva stood above the theater wing and Hercules above the chapel wing. The entrance to the Knobelsdorff staircase was flanked by Meleager, Jupiter, Ganymede, and Antinous. Weather vanes, eagle groups, trophies, reliefs, and cartouches completed the decoration.
Seventeen original attic figures survived, and fragments of eighteen others were recorded. Restored or reconstructed works returned to the facades include Hercules, a youth leaning against a tree, Marcus Manlius Capitolinus with the Capitoline goose, Ariadne and Theseus, Andromeda and Perseus, and the muses Urania, Terpsichore, Erato, and Polyhymnia. Ariadne and Theseus were made around 1750 by Leonhard Storch. The lost figure of Marcus Manlius Capitolinus was recreated by Andreas Klein in 2016 and 2017 and installed in 2018.
Reconstructed Exterior and Modern Interior
The reconstructed external facades and the facades facing the Alter Markt follow historical plans, surveys, photographs, and surviving fragments. The outer walls are built in full brickwork and covered with plaster. Reconstructed sandstone cornices and pilasters were finished by hand, and wooden windows with genuine muntins reproduce the historic appearance. Sandstone came from Saxon quarries, while the reddish plaster follows the palette associated with eighteenth-century Potsdam buildings. Surviving fragments were returned to their former positions where technically possible, with traces of historic workmanship and weathering retained.
The courtyard facades also follow historical models. Their box windows combine an outer historicizing wooden layer with an inner layer providing sound and thermal insulation. The air space between the layers allows natural ventilation. The modern parliamentary volume is deeper than the historic palace, and the south and side wings extend farther toward the courtyard to accommodate the plenary hall, members’ rooms, staff, administrative areas, and parliamentary equipment. The courtyard is consequently smaller while retaining its general proportions.
The interior is functional and minimalist. The former central wing contains the public parliamentary area, and the reconstructed staircase leads to a foyer, information desk, cloakrooms, press area, cafeteria, exhibition area, lecture room, administrative offices, and petition committee rooms. Party-group areas and meeting rooms occupy the upper floors of the side wings. The plenary hall uses white, silver, and red, colors derived from Brandenburg. A light dome in the historic central pavilion illuminates the hall, while press and television galleries flank the central public gallery.
Surviving Associated Structures
Fortuna Portal
Jean de Bodt designed the Fortuna Portal for the royal alterations of 1701. A figure of Fortuna crowned the portal and gave it its name. Destroyed in 1945, it was reconstructed in the modern building from historical plans and photographs, traditional techniques, and surviving fragments.
Fahnentreppe
The Fahnentreppe, or Flag Staircase, is a free-standing external staircase at the west end of the main wing facing the Lustgarten. Historically, it led to Frederick II’s private apartment and carried a bronze artistic railing made by Johann Melchior Kambly in 1752. Its nine putti gave it the additional names Puttentreppe and Angel Staircase.
The reconstructed staircase uses a cast railing with original and newly made decorative elements. Andreas Hoferick recreated the nine putti. In the present building, the staircase ends before an office window rather than functioning as an entrance. It was formally reopened on 11 September 2022, with temporary glass sections standing in for railing elements not yet reconstructed.
Ringer Colonnade
The Ringer Colonnade originally connected the west wing with the Marstall and separated the Lustgarten from the city. Built in 1745 and 1746 after a design by Knobelsdorff, it consisted of fourteen pairs of columns and carried twelve sculptural works, including six groups of wrestlers, five fencers, and one slinger.
The bombing of 14 April 1945 destroyed approximately half of the colonnade. The surviving section was moved several hundred metres toward the Havel and the Neuer Lustgarten, near the Neptune Basin, and later restored. Parts returned to the area between the palace and Marstall in 2016, although the tram route prevents complete reconstruction. Most of the surviving sculpture remained in storage, while a vase and two putti returned in 2019.
Marstall
The Marstall began as Nering’s orangery of 1685. It became royal stables in 1714 and was enlarged and redesigned by Knobelsdorff in 1746, with equestrian figures by Friedrich Christian Glume. The building survived the bombing and later urban redevelopment. Since 1981, it has housed the Potsdam Film Museum.
The southeast corner of the reconstructed palace includes the bronze Otto Braun Monument, commemorating the last democratic minister-president of the Free State of Prussia. The Petitioners’ Lime Tree, associated with Frederick the Great’s reception of subjects’ petitions, also survives as part of the palace’s historical setting.
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