Cecilienhof Palace

Neuer Garten & Schloss Cecilienhof – © Ktlyall / Mediawiki

"Fat good-for-nothing" – not really a flattering nickname, especially for a king. But the people felt that the name suited the hedonistic Friedrich Wilhelm II well. Admittedly, his domestic policy was somewhat lacking. But his understanding of art and architecture – regal. In 1786 he had the New Garden built between the Heiliger See and Jungfernsee lakes in the north of Potsdam: with its Marble Palace, shell grotto, an orangery with an Egyptian gateway, an icehouse in the shape of a pyramid and a palace kitchen in the style of a half-sunken Greek temple. Wörlitz Park had met its match.
Just 30 years on, the "fat good-for-nothing" long gone, the landscape gardener Peter Joseph Lenné came to Potsdam. Still a gardening assistant back then, he began transforming the overgrown park. He created an English-style country park with broad paths, expansive lawns and sweeping vistas of Peacock Island, Glienicke Palace and Babelsberg Palace.

Some 100 years later, between 1914 and 1917, Kaiser Wilhelm II had Schloss Cecilienhof built in the north of the gardens for his son Wilhelm and his wife Cecilie. The use of traditional building materials such as brick and wood helps the house to blend in with its surroundings. The actual size of Schloss Cecilienhof only becomes evident upon closer inspection: the house has a total of 176 rooms. Some of them were used by the Allies in 1945 for their Potsdam Conference.