Park Sanssouci is one of the glories of world-heritage Potsdam.

The grand park of almost 300 hectares, developed in stages by Frederick the Great and his successors, came to be filled with pavilions, follies, fountains and gardens of varying style and taste.

All this demands several hours’ wandering with a map to fully appreciate. One estimate measures its combined pathways at 70km. The east-west avenue Hauptallee stretches 2km, almost the full width of the park.

Frederick first had Schloss Sanssouci built at the top of the Weinberg, with the Neue Kammern and Bildergalerie nearby. All were complete by 1764. The Weinberg was designed by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff with sweeping terraces and garden follies including the Neptungrotte and a mock obelisk at the east end of Hauptallee.

In the meantime, Frederick commissioned Johann Gottfried Büring to design the Chinesisches Haus, a rounded pavilion that is one of the most exquisite Rococo buildings in Germany. The pagoda-inspired building is devoted to tea and music and was used for the king’s small daytime gatherings.

A porch with ornate and gilded columns shelters matching life-size statues of musicians and tea-drinkers, expressing the sort of Eastern fantasy sweeping the European courts of the period. Another gilded oriental figure on the roof shelters under a parasol, expressing the summer theme. Peter Benckert and Johann Gottlieb Heymüller were the sculptors. Delicate interior paintings extend across the domed ceiling and through the porcelain cabinet.

Frederick’s grand palace statement

But Frederick was also determined to express his power and magnificence. In an imperious gesture to mark his narrow triumph in the Seven Years War, Frederick commissioned the late Baroque Neues Palais at the other end of the parkland, dwarfing every other structure in Park Sanssouci.

This was a statement of power, designed for celebrations on a grand scale. A two-storey building of more than 200 rooms, built in brick and ashlar, was topped by almost 300 mythological statues.

The full inventory of banquet halls, marble hall, grand suites and galleries greeted Frederick’s official guests. The dome was for show only. One of the side wings accommodated a Rococo theatre. A separate complex to the west of the main palace accommodated staff. Büring, Heinrich Ludwig Manger and Carl von Gontard worked on the design, which was completed in 1769.

Frederick’s successors, by then styled emperors, used the palace until 150 years later.

Later development took place along the spine of the Hauptallee leading to Neues Palais. The present English-style park layout is from the 19th century, masterminded by Peter Joseph Lenné, the greatest of Prussian landscape architects. More sight lines were opened up by Lenné, who started work in 1828.

Lenné dotted his design with small gardens including a Nordic garden with conifers, the symmetrical Historicist Sizilianischer Garten and the Paradisgarten. Today’s university botanic garden cultivates about 10,000 species.

Italian fashions dominate new palaces

Later, the Park Charlottenhof section south of Hauptallee was added. Under Friedrich Wilhelm IV Italian tastes dominated and the so-called Marlygarten was developed at the city end of the park. The Romanesque-inspired Friedenskirche, a towered royal chapel, was designed and built by Ludwig Persius and Friedrich August Stüler.

Friedrich Wilhelm, who took the Prussian throne in 1840, had more impact on Park Sanssouci than any monarch except Frederick. He was a true Romantic and, like his predecessor, brought an artist’s eye to his commissions and sketched concepts for his architects. As crown prince he had commissioned the small palaces Schloss Charlottenhof (designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in Classicist style) and the Römische Bäder (by Persius, a student of Schinkel).

For the Friedenskirche, he bought and imported a mosaic from the Venetian island of Murano that had to be incorporated in the apse. Later the rotunda housing the emperor Friedrich III’s mausoleum was added to the church. His empress Victoria, daughter of Queen Victoria, was laid beside him.

Friedrich Wilhelm had much grander plans for a monumental avenue along the Klausberg ridge that resulted in the oversized Mediterranean-style palace known as Neue Orangerie or Orangerieschloß.

This vast building was built for more than fruit trees. The frontage measured 300m, covering a succession of arches designed to frame what the Romantic king called Via Triumphalis. The style was inspired by Renaissance Italian buildings with models from Rome and Florence. The central orangery section was only 100m wide. The design inspiration is said to have come from Rome’s Villa Medici and Florence’s Galleria degli Uffizi.

Apartments were created for visits by the tsar Nicholas I and the tsarina, Friedrich Wilhelm’s sister Charlotte. But the outstanding features were under-floor heating to maintain the plants and a skylight roof over the central red-walled and upholstered gallery stocked with copies of Renaissance paintings by Rafael. Towers provided outlook points over Park Sanssouci. Stüler, Persius and Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse worked on the palace designs, but the king again supplied the first sketches.

The arches, windows, sculptures, water features and gardens are a taste of la dolce vita.

Avenue to a vision splendid

The full vision for the Via Triumphalis was never realised due to initial difficulties acquiring the necessary land and cost pressures after the 1848 revolution in the Prussian kingdom.

But today an avenue follows the Klausberg ridge to the Belvedere auf dem Klausberg, a two-storey folly at the high point of Park Sanssouci. The walk gives an idea of the views Friedrich Wilhelm had hoped to exploit in a concept that included viaducts.

The Belvedere is a domed and balconied rotunda designed by Georg Christian Unger and built by Frederick the Great to exploit the Sanssouci vistas. Restoration after a World War II was a long project but today the view remains splendid and the yet-to-be-completed lower level is the site of a small museum display. The delicate ceiling painting on an avian theme in the fully restored upstairs chamber is worth seeing.

The path passes the Drachenhaus, a house that took the pagoda concept to complete fulfilment. Gontard designed the building on a Canton model and added 16 gilded dragons to the roof surfaces, which gave the building its name. It was completed in 1770 and today houses a cafe and restaurant.

It’s easy for visitors to see why rulers such as Frederick and Friedrich Wilhelm saw Park Sanssouci as a sanctuary and a place free from worries. Few places in Europe can match its appeal.

Visiting Park Sanssouci

The palaces and gardens of Potsdam are united in a UNESCO-listed world-heritage site. The best time to visit and tour most of the buildings is from May to October. Parts of the Neue Orangerie were closed late in 2024 as part of ongoing restorations.

Buses run to several parts of Park Sanssouci, a regional train station lies to the south and trams reach surrounding streets. Buses from Wannsee run via the famous bridge Glienicker Brücke.

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