Peacock Island Palace – between reconstruction and conservation

It was built between 1794 and 1795 by court carpenter Johann Gottlob Brendel for the Prussian King Frederick William II as a timber-framed building with an early Neoclassical interior. While the simple exterior wooden cladding has required repeated renewal, the interior retains its original, high-quality, handcrafted, and artistic furnishings, both fixed and movable.

In the autumn of 2017, an interdisciplinary team began the planning, complete renovation, and restoration of the palace. Extensive, substantial work on the building structure and exterior contrasted sharply with the highly sensitive interiors, featuring textile and paper wallpapers, wainscoting, parquet flooring, and wall and ceiling paintings.

The seven-year project was characterized by its technical complexity, high intensity, wealth of detail, and significant increase in knowledge – reason enough to present the results in a colloquium and make them available to a wider audience in the conference proceedings.

The volume reports on new findings in building research, innovative planning and reconstruction of the building envelope, and diverse analytical and restoration methods applied to the interior furnishings, yielding surprising results from art historical research, restoration studies, and natural science research.

Scientific Directors:

• Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg
  
• Potsdam University of Applied Sciences – Conservation and Restoration Program
  
• Brandenburg State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeological State Museum
  
• Rathgen Research Laboratory of the National Museums in Berlin – Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation