Brandenburg Gate - Berlin #2
by Juergen Weiss
Title
Brandenburg Gate - Berlin #2
Artist
Juergen Weiss
Medium
Photograph
Description
SOLD on 07/02/2014 as a Luster Print to a happy Buyer from Kirkland, WA
The " Brandenburg Gate ", built in the 18th century by Karl Gotthard Langhans as a symbol of peace, is one of the most important monuments in Berlin, Germany. It is built on the site of a former city gate that marked the start of the road from Berlin to the town of Brandenburg an der Havel.
It is located in the western part of the city centre of Berlin within Mitte, at the junction of Unter den Linden and Ebertstrasse, immediately west of the Pariser Platz. One block to the north stands the Reichstag building, which houses the German parliament (Bundestag). The gate is the monumental entry to Unter den Linden, the renowned boulevard of linden trees, which led directly to the royal City Palace of the Prussian monarchs.
Throughout its existence, the Brandenburg Gate was often a site for major historical events and is today considered not only as a symbol of the tumultuous history of Europe and Germany, but also of European unity and peace.
It was commissioned by King Frederick William II of Prussia as a sign of peace and built by architect Carl Gotthard Langhans from 1788 to 1791. Having suffered considerable damage in World War II, the Brandenburg Gate was restored from 2000 to 2002 by the Stiftung Denkmalschutz Berlin (Berlin Monument Conservation Foundation).
During the post-war Partition of Germany, the gate was isolated and inaccessible immediately next to the Berlin Wall. The area around the gate was featured most prominently in the media coverage of the tearing down of the wall in 1989, and the subsequent German reunification in 1990.
In the time of Frederick William (1688), shortly after the Thirty Years' War and a century before the gate was constructed, Berlin was a small walled city within a star fort with several named gates: Spandauer Tor, St. Georgen Tor, Stralower Tor, Koepenicker Tor, Neues Tor, and Leipziger Tor (see map). Relative peace, a policy of religious tolerance, and status as capital of the Kingdom of Prussia facilitated the growth of the city.
When a much larger Berlin was partitioned after World War II, the central borough of the city fell into the Soviet sector, adjoining the British sector at the Brandenburg Gate
The Brandenburg Gate was not part of the old fortifications, but one of 18 gates within the Berlin Customs Wall (German: Akzisemauer), erected in the 1730s, including the old fortified city and many of its then suburbs.
The new gate was commissioned by Frederick William II of Prussia to represent peace. The Gate was designed by Carl Gotthard Langhans, the Court Superintendent of Buildings, and built between 1788 and 1791, replacing the earlier simple guardhouses which flanked the original gate in the Customs Wall. The gate consists of twelve Doric columns, six to each side, forming five passageways. Citizens originally were allowed to use only the outermost two on each side. Atop the gate is a Quadriga, a chariot drawn by four horses, sculpted by Johann Gottfried Schadow. The new gate was originally named the Peace Gate (German: Friedenstor) and the goddess is Eirene, the goddess of peace.
The gate's design is based upon the Propylaea, the gateway to the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, and is consistent with Berlin's history of architectural classicism (first, Baroque, and then neo-Palladian). The gate was the first element of "Athens on the River Spree" by architect Langhans. (Resource Wikipedia).
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January 30th, 2012
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