When the Iron Curtain lifted from Potsdam, it revealed to the world a wealth of architectural and historical treasures including an extensive landscape of castles, palaces and sprawling parks.

 

Potsdam's period of bloom started in 1662, when the City Palace replaced a former fortress as winter residence for Prussian royalty. For nearly three centuries, Prussian kings commissioned the best artists of their time to build elaborate palaces and gardens in the royal residence city of Potsdam.

 

Certainly the most popular of the palaces is the enchanting palace of Sanssouci, built under the direction of Frederick the Great from 1745-1747 in the expansive 734-acre Sanssouci Park (nearly the same size as Central Park). During the next hundred years, descendants continued to make their mark on Sanssouci Park with new constructions including 200-room the New Palace, a massive, 200-room Baroque masterpiece, in 1763; and the neo-classical Charlottenhof in 1826.

 

In the 19th century, renowned landscape architect Peter Joseph Lenné unified the palaces and gardens into such a harmonious landscape of palaces and gardens that UNESCO placed it on the list of World Heritage Sites in 1991. Lenné used areas of created landscape and the unique topography to unite the town and adjoining royal palaces. Despite the urban development of the 20th century this landscape still exists and can still be seen. From the European perspective the Postsdam cultural landscape is an unique example for the creation of an landscape against the intellectual background of the monarchical idea of state.

 

 

This and the following pages of the article appeared in its original form in Gemütlichkeit Travel Newsletter.