{"id":546619,"date":"2014-10-06T13:26:21","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T11:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/berliner-schloss.de\/?page_id=546619"},"modified":"2017-07-26T08:18:31","modified_gmt":"2017-07-26T08:18:31","slug":"significance-and-exterior-views","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/berliner-schloss.de\/en\/palace-history\/significance-and-exterior-views\/","title":{"rendered":"Significance and Exterior Views"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Significance and Exterior Views<\/h1>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]\u201cThe Palace did not lie in Berlin \u2013 Berlin was the Palace\u201d[\/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”549414″ img_size=”262×133″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][vc_column_text]Paris had already been in existence over 1,500 years before the Bourbons built the Tuileries Palace and the Louvre. The city is identified with much more than its central palace and surroundings. In 2000 year old London, the present day governmental quarter and Buckingham Palace arose about 150 years ago. It was in the 19th century that the monarchy transferred its ancient seat from the Tower of London to this area.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”549420″ img_size=”262×133″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][vc_column_text]Berlin city center, 1937, photographed from the Victory Column on the Great Star circle. The Palace dominated the center of the city. It stretches from the left side of the picture to the right below the tower of the Statehouse with its southwest corner in the center and onward with the Pharmacy wing almost to the Cathedral. Because it was 10 meters higher than its surroundings, it towered above the houses on Unter den Linden[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”549127″ img_size=”266×133″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][vc_column_text]The old center of Berlin: Palace, cathedral, museum and arsenal as symbols of state authority, religion, culture and valor are grouped around the Pleasure Garden plaza.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”549945″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”549150″ img_size=”360×181″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]And Richard Hamann, the Professor of the Art History Institute of Berlin\u2019s Humboldt Univeristy, emphasized:<\/p>\n

\u201cBerlin is poor in monuments of the past, but it possesses a work that is worthy to rank with the greatest ones of the past and is mentioned and pictured in all art histories of the world: The Berlin Palace.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Berlin Palace: Spree river fa\u00e7ade before the construction of the ship dock, about 1875. \u201cIts creator was the greatest sculptor and architect in northern Germany, Andreas Schl\u00fcter. There it stands with a fascinating power and monumentality, an example of the unique north German baroque, worthy to stand along side of Michelangelo\u2019s St. Peters in Rome and the Louvre in Paris. It dominated the center of Berlin, the square which it helped to form and the streets which led to it. It is the very essence of old Berlin for those who would like to see Berlin\u2019s past reembodied.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”549946″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”img_link_large”][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”549947″ img_size=”400×297″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”549948″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center” onclick=”img_link_large”][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”549376″ img_size=”400×247″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”549375″ img_size=”400×247″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]Almost 250 years later Prussia was extinct and the Palace had been severely damaged. Regarding its imminent demolition, Pro. Dr. Ernst Gall, General Director of the Prussian and Bavarian Palace Authority, stated in 1950: \u201cIf the Berlin Palace is destroyed, one will have lost one of the most creative architectural works of art which, after so many losses, the world can still call its own these days. From the period around the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, there is little in Europe that can surpass this edifice in its power and in the vivid sculptural clarity of its fa\u00e7ade treatments.\u201d<\/strong>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”549301″ img_size=”400×263″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”549302″ img_size=”400×263″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”549126″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Johannes Stroux, the President of the Academy of science in Berlin expanded:<\/p>\n

\u201cA powerful seriousness is expressed by the city side of the Palace, while a relaxed solemnity and open gracefulness reigns over the garden side.<\/strong> After Eosander\u2019s expansion, the Palace turned its front toward the west instead of as previously toward the south: together with the former arsenal and the opera Unter den Linden, the Palace constituted a monumental city core possessed be only a few other cities.\u201d<\/strong>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”549265″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”549125″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”549358″ img_size=”262×341″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”549299″ img_size=”262×265″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][vc_column_text]The Berliners poked fun at it calling it \u201cthe advancing step backward and the halted step forward.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”549264″ img_size=”262×341″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Almost 250 years later Prussia was extinct and the Palace had been severely damaged. Regarding its imminent demolition, Pro. Dr. Ernst Gall, General Director of the Prussian and Bavarian Palace Authority, stated in 1950:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the Berlin Palace is destroyed, one will have lost one of the most creative architectural works of art which, after so many losses, the world can still call its own these days. From the period around the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, there is little in Europe that can surpass this edifice in its power and in the vivid sculptural clarity of its fa\u00e7ade treatments.\u201d<\/strong>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”549365″ img_size=”262×182″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”549294″ img_size=”262×182″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”549297″ img_size=”262×182″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”549304″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”img_link_large”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”549303″ img_size=”262×155″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][vc_column_text]Berlin Palace: Schl\u00fcter courtyard from the east. The facades of the transverse wing were remodeled under Kaiser Wilhelm I in neorenaissance style. Schl\u00fcter wanted originally to change them to be a mirror image of his East Portico. His firing after the mint tower catastrophe (see \u201cArchitectural History\u201d) prevented this[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”549297″ img_size=”262×329″ alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”549194″ img_size=”medium” alignment=”center” onclick=”img_link_large”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”549300″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” img_link_large=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Palace did not lie in Berlin \u2013 Berlin was the Palace<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":550348,"parent":551113,"menu_order":10,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-546619","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/berliner-schloss.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/546619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/berliner-schloss.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/berliner-schloss.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berliner-schloss.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berliner-schloss.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546619"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/berliner-schloss.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/546619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":551393,"href":"https:\/\/berliner-schloss.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/546619\/revisions\/551393"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berliner-schloss.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/551113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berliner-schloss.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/berliner-schloss.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}