Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Potsdam
For most visitors
POTSDAM
means
Sanssouci
, Frederick the Great's splendid landscaped
park of architectural treasures that once completed Berlin as the grand Prussian capital.
However, Potsdam's origins date back to the tenth-century Slavonic settlement
Poztupimi, and predate Berlin by a couple of hundred years. he castle built here in
1160 marked the first step in the town's gradual transformation from sleepy fishing
backwater to
royal residence
and
garrison town
, a role it enjoyed under the
Hohenzollerns until the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918. World War II left
Potsdam badly damaged: on April 14, 1945, a bombing raid killed four thousand
people, destroyed many fine Baroque buildings and reduced its centre to ruins. Less
than four months later - on August 2 - the victorious Allies converged on Potsdam's
Schloss
Cecilienhof
to hammer out the details of a division of Germany and Europe.
Potsdam itself ended up in the Soviet zone, where modern “socialist” building
programmes steadily erased many architectural memories of the town's uncomfortably
prosperous imperial past. Yet it's this past that has given us its most popular sights, apart
from those at Park Sanssouci; there are more across the Havel in
Babelsberg
, which is
best known as the site of the most important film studio in German film history.
North from the train station beyond Lange Brücke is the
Alter Markt
, the fringe of
Potsdam's town centre. From here the northbound and arterial
Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse
leads to its pedestrianized main shopping street
Brandenburger Strasse
. Part of a
Baroque quarter, it's best appreciated off the main drag, but in truth the town's
attractions are scant in comparison with what awaits in Park Sanssouci.
11
Alter Markt
he arresting outlines of the unmistakably GDR-era
Hotel Mercure
and the stately
domed
Nikolaikirche
frame the triangular
Alter Markt
. Its surging tra
c and extensive
building work make it an unprepossessing city gateway, but for most of its life it
harboured bustling squares and streets. It was here that the town's earliest fortifications
were built and where the medieval town flourished, a past that the highly visible
excavations continually unravel, as remnants of various crafts and the occasional buried
treasure are found. But the Alter Markt is best known as the former site of the
Stadtschloss
, a Baroque residence built by the Great Elector between 1662 and 1669.
World War II (specifically April 14 and 15, 1945) reduced it to a bare, roofless shell,
and the GDR demolished what remained in 1960 - around eighty percent of the
building - to remove the last vestiges of Potsdam's grandest imperial buildings.
Today, Brandenburg's parliament building (
Landtag
)
copies the footprint of the old
Schloss and incorporates many of its elements into its design: not least the reconstruction
of the gate to the palace forecourt, the domed
Fortunaportal
, which completes the
recreation of three domed structures that traditionally dominated the Alter Markt.
he most significant of these is the elegant, Schinkel-designed Neoclassical
Nikolaikirche
(Mon-Sat 9am-7pm, Sun 11.30am-7pm), while the third dome belongs
to Potsdam's former
Rathaus
(Tues-Sun 10am-6pm; free), built in the mid-eighteenth
century in Palladian Classical style. Under the GDR the building became an arts
centre, a role it retains to this day. he
obelisk
in front, designed by Knobelsdorff,
originally bore four reliefs depicting the Great Elector and his successors. When
re-erected during the 1970s these were replaced with reliefs of the architects who
shaped much of Potsdam: Schinkel, Knobelsdorff, Gontard and Persius.
Filmmuseum
Breite Str. 1a • Daily 10am-6pm • €5 •
T
0331 271 81 12,
W
filmmuseum-potsdam.de
Across the main road, Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse, from the Nikolaikirche, lies the squat
but elegant
Marstall
, the oldest town-centre survivor. Built as an orangerie towards the
end of the eighteenth century and converted into stables by that scourge of frivolity,
Friedrich Wilhelm I, the building owes its current appearance to Knobelsdorff, who
