Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Charlottenhof, Potsdam-Sanssouci
Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Charlottenhof, Potsdam-Sanssouci

Author: Heinz Schönemann

Publisher: Edition Axel Menges

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 81

ISBN-13: 3930698129

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When the small farmstead in the south-western corner of Sanssouci park came up for sale in 1825, Hofmarschall von Maltzahn wrote to the King of Prussia to say that the grounds of Sanssouci would be much improved by the addition of this plot. It was clear that Peter Joseph Lenne, who produced a first plan for the garden as soon as the land was presented to the Crown Prince, later King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, was behind the letter. Schinkel, the architect of Charlottenhof, and Lenne, the designer of the surrounding park, had met in 1816 when they were working for Chancellor Hardenberg in Glienicke, between Berlin and Potsdam. They established a community of interest that architecture critics have compared with the best years of cooperation between John Nash and Humphry Repton. Charlottenhof became the highlight of their joint activities. The palace, set on a severe garden axis, was built from 1826 to 1829. It was followed from 1829 to 1840 by the freely developing area of the Hofgartnerhaus and its adjacent facilities, all of which has become known as the 'Roman Baths'. The Crown Prince involved himself in the planning process, contributing over 100 sketches. He called Charlottenhof 'my Siam', understood as a synonym for a better world, and he was pursuing with it his intention of presenting his own future style of government, based on romantic theories of the state and striving for a harmonious balance of all classes and interests. Charlottenhof is Schinkel's only work to have survived complete inside and outside, surrounded by Lenne's landscape garden, which has also been carefully looked after and preserved. In his role as the foundation's curator Heinz Schonemann isresponsible for the preservation of the buildings and monuments of the Stiftung Preussische Schlosser und Garten Berlin-Brandenburg. Reinhard Gorner has been working as an architectural photographer for more than a decade. He is highly thought of by many major architects as an interpre

History, Fiction, and Germany
History, Fiction, and Germany

Author: Brent Orlyn Peterson

Publisher: Wayne State University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 9780814332009

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A study of the content, development, and transmission of German identity during the nineteenth century as Germany's national narrative took shape in historical fiction and in both popular and academic history. The German-speaking inhabitants of central Europe did not automatically think of themselves as "Germans"--not before 1871 and not always after unification. In fact, they spoke mutually incomprehensible dialects, owed allegiance to different leaders, worshiped in different churches, and would not have recognized each other's customs. If asked about their identity, these prospective Germans might have answered Austrian, Bavarian, or Prussian, and they could as easily have used more local labels or resorted to occupational markers. For this disparate population to think of itself as "German," that word had to acquire content--people had to learn a whole set of stories they could tell themselves and to others in answer to the question of identity. History, Fiction, and Germany chronicles how German nationalism developed simultaneously with the historical novel and the field of history, both at universities and in middlebrow reading material. The book examines Germany's emerging national narrative as nineteenth-century writers adapted it to their own visions and to changing circumstances. These writers found and popularized the nation's heroes and heroines, demonized its villains and enemies, and projected the nation's hopes and dreams for the future. Author Brent O. Peterson argues that it was the production and consumption of national history--the writing and reading of the nation--that filled Germany with Germans. Although the task of national narration was never complete and never produced a single, universally accepted version of German national identity, tales from Germans' gradually shared history did more to create Germany than any statesman, general, or philosopher. History, Fiction, and Germany provides a valuable resource for scholars and students of German studies, as well as anyone interested in history and the articulation of national identity.