The New Garden () in Potsdam is a park of 102.5 hectares located southwest of Berlin, Germany, in northern Potsdam and bordering on the lakes Heiliger See and Jungfernsee. Starting in 1787, Frederick William II of Prussia (1744-1797) arranged to have a new garden laid out on this site, and the design and landscaping was carried out by Johann August Eyserbeck, who had previously worked on the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm.
The New Garden, along with the Marmorpalais palace on its grounds and other palaces and parks in Potsdam and Berlin was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1990 because of its unique unity of architecture and landscaping and its testimony to the power of Prussia in the 17th and 18th centuries.
History
When he was still crown prince, Frederick William II of Prussia procured property situated on lake Heiliger See, supplementing it later by the purchase of adjoining fruit gardens and vineyards. One year after his accession to the throne work began on creating a park which in the spirit of the times was supposed to reflect contemporary garden architecture, setting it apart from the then out of fashion baroque ornamental and kitchen grounds of Frederick the Great's nearby Sanssouci. On visits to the small principality of Anhalt-Dessau the king had become acquainted with the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm (now a UNESCO World Heritage Site). This park was the earliest and largest English landscape park on the continent and corresponded to the king's ideal of a garden. The architect of Wörlitz, Johann August Eyserbeck, was engaged to bring this concept to Potsdam.
At the same time a new garden was being laid out in Potsdam, Frederick William II had a new palace erected between 1787 and 1792. The Marmorpalais ("Marble Palace") was a work of early Classicism following plans by Carl von Gontard and Carl Gotthard Langhans, the latter primarily responsible for the interior work. This building brought to Berlin-Brandenburg a style already long common in the rest of Europe and initiated a transition to a new artistic epoch.
In 1816, during the reign of Frederick William III, Peter Joseph Lenné, at the time still a journeyman gardener apprentice, arrived in Potsdam and was given the task of redesigning the neglected and overgrown garden. While retaining some of the existing garden units he created an English landscape garden with extensive open spaces, lawns and wide pathways, and especially lines of sight to the Pfaueninsel, Glienicke, Babelsberg and Sacrow.
Near the end of the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1913, the last palace of the Hohenzollern dynasty was erected in the northern part of the New Garden, Cecilienhof Palace. His eldest son, Crown Prince Wilhelm, and his wife Cecilie lived there until early in 1945, and the site was selected for the signed of the Potsdam Agreement.
Description
In contrast to the extensive English landscape gardens of the 19th century, whose primary elements were trees, meadows and water, the English garden of the 18th century was characterized by relatively discrete regions decorated with small architectural elements. The landscape character was emphasized in a design intended to reproduce nature. The trees and plants were not to be shaped and trimmed, but left to grow naturally. Rural life was also "rediscovered" in the process. Browsing cows were part of the scene in the New Garden, with their milk being processed to butter and cheese in a dairy at the northwest corner of the park (it is now a lakeshore restaurant). Summer houses which existed on the property were incorporated in the planning and have survived to the present. They are designated by their color: the Brown, Red or Green House.
Frederick William II belonged to a lodge of Freemasons and to the more mystically oriented secret society of the Rosicrucians. Several buildings in the New Garden reflect Freemason traditions. For example, the palace kitchen was built in the form of a partially buried temple, the cold storage room in the form of a pyramid, and the library in gothic style. This architecture bears no relationship to the purpose of the buildings. Carl Gotthard Langhans and Andreas Ludwig Krüger were acknowledging bygone styles when designing these utilitarian structures.