I n our era of staggering financial inequality, a palace — especially its decorative elements — can be hard to take. But palaces are part of Potsdam’s history as a royal residence and refuge.
I checked out a dozen palaces that show up in a search through the UNESCO World Heritage listings for the Potsdam area.
For two and a half centuries, Potsdam was where Hohenzollern rulers relaxed and ruled away from Berlin. Successive Prussian kings and German emperors maintained business-and-pleasure palaces here until the monarchy ended in revolution in 1918.
Sometimes a new king just wanted his own pad. Other times, a palace was built for a young successor or a loved one. Palace-like structures also could be mostly ornamental, built to entertain or create a mood, without a practical function.
New Palace
The New Palace was built by Frederick the Great after the devastating Seven Years War (1756-1763), which nearly bankrupted half a dozen countries. He wanted to show that Prussia was still rich and powerful.
City Palace
A Hohenzollern residence in downtown Potsdam from the 1660s that was Frederick the Great’s winter residence and offices. Bombed flat in 1945, it was rebuilt after 2010 and today houses the Brandenburg state parliament.
Babelsberg Palace
Tudor-Gothic castle designed around 1833 for Prince Wilhelm, the future first emperor of Germany. It stands in a large landscaped park across a lake and southeast of Potsdam center.
Charlottenhof
Modest estate house in southern Sanssouci Park, transformed into a Roman-style villa for Crown Prince Frederick William in the late 1820s. The park’s Roman baths are nearby. Charlottenhof is a king’s vision of a Roman country villa. The king gave it to the crown prince as a Christmas gift.
Marble Palace
Neo-classical palace (c. 1787) for Frederick William II, successor to Frederick the Great. Prince Wilhelm, who became the last German emperor, lived there, too, almost 100 years later. In the New Garden south of the Havel River and west of a long lake.
Glienicke Palace
Prince Carl, brother of Prussian kings, bought the manor house in the early 1820s and had it converted to the Neoclassical villa of today. Straight east of the Marble Palace, across the Bridge of Spies over the Havel River.
Jagdschloss Glienicke
Begun as a small lodge in the late 1600s, the hunting palace was lavishly rebuilt by order of Frederick III, an elector of the Holy Roman Empire, after Prussia became a kingdom in 1701. Its Neo-Renaissance look stems from a remodeling late in the 19th Century. The palace sits just south of Glienicke Palace.
Kleines Schloss (Small Palace)
Converted in British style in the early 1840s from a weaver’s house for another Prince Frederick William. Rebuilt in Babelsberg Park after WWII damage, its first floor is a cafe today.
Here’s a shot from 5 years ago that shows the little palace without the scaffolding — and maybe why it’s being renovated.
Pfaueninsel Palace
Built in the late 1790s on Peacock Island for a king and his mistress. That’s an iron bridge linking the towers, and the facade is actually wood painted to look like stone.
Orangerie
You take your trees inside for the winter, don’t you? The Hohenzollerns did. The Orangerie is where a bunch of the Sanssouci trees and precious plants still go to weather the long cold, wet, gray northern German winter.
The Orangerie’s not really a palace, but it looks like one. Meanwhile, I’m omitting the Neue Kammern (New Chambers) that look pretty palace-y, too. Originally built as an orangery for plants, the New Chambers were converted into grand halls and apartments for Sanssouci visitors. It’s a pair with the Picture Gallery on the other side of the palace.
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