(Hans) Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff (17 February 1699 – 16 September 1753) was a painter, military officer, and architect in Prussia.
Knobelsdorff was born in Kuckädel, now in Krosno County. A soldier in the service of Prussia, he resigned his commission in 1729 as captain so that he could pursue his interest in architecture. In 1740 he travelled to Paris and Italy to study at the expense of the new king, Frederick II of Prussia.
Knobelsdorff was influenced as an architect by French Baroque Classicism and by Palladian architecture. With his interior design and the backing of the king, he created the basis for the Frederician Rococo style at Rheinsberg, which was the residence of the crown prince and later monarch.
Knobelsdorff was the head custodian of royal buildings and head of a privy council on financial matters. In 1746 he was dismissed by the king, and Johann Boumann finished all his projects, including Sanssouci.
Knobelsdorff died in Berlin. His grave is preserved in the Protestant Friedhof I der Jerusalems- und Neuen Kirchengemeinde (Cemetery No. I of the congregations of Jerusalem's Church and New Church) in Berlin-Kreuzberg, south of Hallesches Tor.
Karl Begas the younger created a statue of Knobelsdorff in 1886. This originally stood in the entrance hall of the Altes Museum (in Berlin) and is now in a depot of the state museum.
Life and works
Military service and artistic development
Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff, the son of Silesian landed gentry, was born on February 17, 1699, on the estate of Kuckädel (now Polish Kukadlo) near Crossen (now the Polish city Krosno Odrzańskie) on the Oder River. After the early death of his father he was raised by his godfather, the chief senior forester Georg von Knobelsdorff. In keeping with family tradition he began his professional career in the Prussian army. Already at 16 years of age he participated in a campaign against King Charles XII of Sweden, and in 1715 in the siege of Stralsund.
While still a soldier he developed his artistic talents in self-study. After leaving military service he arranged to be trained in various painting techniques by the Prussian court painter Antoine Pesne, with whom he shared a lifelong friendship. Knobelsdorff also acquired additional expertise in geometry and anatomy. He saw his professional future in painting, and his pictures and drawings were always highly appreciated, even after the focus of his activities turned elsewhere.
His interest in architecture developed in a roundabout way, and came from representing buildings in his pictures. Later, the pictorial aspect of his architectural sketches was often noted and met with varying reactions. Heinrich Ludwig Manger, as an architect more a technician than an artist, wrote with a critical undertone in 1789 in his Baugeschichte von Potsdam, that Knobelsdorff designed his buildings "merely in a perspective and picturesque way", but praised his paintings. Frederick the Great, in contrast, commented positively on the architect's "picturesque style" (gout pittoresque). There is also no evidence that the informal style of his drawings ever posed a serious impediment to the execution of his buildings.
Knobelsdorff acquired the expertise needed for his new profession again primarily in self-study, after a brief period of training under the architects Kemmeter and von Wangenheim. This breed of "gentlemen architects" was not unusual in the 16th and 17th centuries, and they were esteemed both socially and because of their specialized competence. They trained themselves by studying actual buildings on extensive travels as well as collections of engravings showing views of classical and contemporary buildings. Knobelsdorff's ideal models, the Englishmen Inigo Jones (1573–1652) and William Kent (1684–1748) as well as the Frenchman Claude Perrault (1613–1688), likewise grew into their professions in a roundabout way and were no longer young men when they turned to architecture.
Neuruppin and Rheinsberg
Knobelsdorff gained the attention of King Frederick William I of Prussia (the "Soldier-King"), who had him join the entourage of his son, crown prince Frederick, later King Frederick II (Frederick the Great). After his failed attempt to flee Prussia and subsequent imprisonment in Küstrin, (now Kostrzyn nad Odrą in Poland), Frederick had just been granted somewhat more freedom of movement by his strict father. Apparently, the king hoped that Knobelsdorff, as a sensible and artistically talented nobleman, would have a moderating influence on his son. (The sources vary as to what prompted the first meeting between Knobelsdorff and Frederick, but they all date the event as being in 1732.)
At the time the crown prince, who had been appointed a colonel when he turned 20, took over responsibility for a regiment in the garrison town of Neuruppin. Knobelsdorf became his partner in discussions and advised him on issues of art and architecture. Immediately in front of the city walls they jointly planned the Amalthea garden, which contained a monopteros, a little Apollo temple of classical design. This was the first construction of its type on the European continent and Knobelsdorff's first creation as Frederick the Great's architect. This was where they made music, philosophized, and celebrated, and also after the crown prince had moved to nearby Rheinsberg Castle he frequently visited the temple garden during visits connected with his duties as commander in the Neuruppin garrison.
In 1736 the crown prince gave Knobelsdorff an opportunity to go on a study tour to Italy, which lasted until spring 1737. His stops included Rome, Naples and vicinity, Florence and Venice. His recorded his impressions in a travel sketchbook which contains almost one hundred pencil drawings, but only of part of his trip since on the return stretch he broke his arm in a traffic accident between Rome and Florence. He was unable to carry out a secret mission which involved engaging Italian opera singers to come to Rheinsburg since the available funds were inadequate. Knobelsdorff wrote to the crown prince that "The castrati here cannot be tempted to leave [...] regular employment, especially for those from the poorer classes, is the reason why they prefer 100 Rthlr (Reichstaler) in Rome to thousands abroad. In autumn 1740, shortly after Frederick assumed the throne, Knobelsdorff was sent on another study tour. In Paris only the work of the architect Perrault impressed him—the frontage of the Louvre and the garden side of the castle in Versailles. As to paintings, he listed those of Watteau, Poussin, Chardin and others. On the return trip via Flanders he saw paintings by van Dyck and Rubens.
Rheinsberg Palace and the modest household of the crown prince became a place of relaxed communion and artistic creativity, quite in contrast to the dry, matter-of-fact atmosphere at the Berlin court of the soldier-king. This was where Frederick and Knobelsdorff discussed architecture and city planning, and developed their first ideas for an extensive program of construction which was to be realized when the crown prince assumed the throne. Rheinsberg was where Knobelsdorff received his first major architectural challenge. At that time the palace consisted only of a tower and a building wing. In a painting from 1737 Knobelsdorff depicted the situation before the alterations, as viewed from the far shore of Lake Grienericksee. After preliminary work by the architect and builder Kemmeter and in regular consultation with Frederick, Kobelsdorff gave the ensemble its present form. He extended the grounds by a second tower and matching building wing and by a colonnade connecting both towers.
Forum Fridericianum
As a significant construction, this design was planned already in Rheinsberg as a signal for the start Frederick's reign. In Berlin the king wanted to have a new city palace that could stand up to the splendid residences of major European powers. Knobelsdorff designed an extensive building complex with inner courtyards and in front a cour d'honneur and semicircular colonnades just north of the street Unter den Linden. In front of that he planned a spacious square with two free-standing buildings—an opera house and a hall for ball games. Soon after Frederick acceded to the throne in May 1740, foundation testing began, as well as negotiations about the purchase and demolition of 54 houses that interfered with the project. Already on August 19, 1740, all these preparations were discontinued, supposedly because the intended ground was unsuitable. But in fact the king's distant relatives refused to sell their palaces, which were located in the middle of the planned square.
Frederick attempted to rescue the situation and sketched in modifications on the plan of the layout. When the First Silesian War (1740–1742) began, decisions about the Forum had to be postponed. However, even while the war was being waged the king wanted Knobelsdorff to begin construction of the opera house, today's Berlin State Opera (Staatsoper Unter den Linden). Ultimately, an urban development project resulted in the Fridericanium complex known today as Bebelplatz, a cathedral is flanked by a library and a state-palace.
The work of the Forum Fridericianum languished after the end of the war. Beginning of 1745 Frederick's increasing interest in Potsdam as a second residence became evident and the original plans moved into the background. Construction of the opera house moved in another direction. In 1747 work began on St. Hedwig's Cathedral, in 1748 on the Prince Heinrich Palace, and between 1775 and 1786 the Royal Library was erected. The final square bore little resemblance to the original plan, but was highly praised already by contemporaries and also in this form caused the royal architect to achieve great eminence. The terms "Frederick's Forum" and "Forum Fridericianum" only appeared in specialist literature in the 19th century and were never officially used to refer to the square.
Opera House and St. Hedwig's Cathedral
Knobelsdorff was involved in the construction of St. Hedwig's Cathedral, but it is uncertain to what extent. Frederick II presented the Catholic community with complete building plans, which were probably primarily his ideas which were then realized by Knobelsdorff. The opera house, by contrast, was completely designed by Knobelsdorff and is considered to be one of his most important works. For the frontage of the externally modestly structured building the architect followed the model of two views from Colin Campbell's "Vitruvius Britannicus", one of the most important collections of architectonic engravings, which included works of English Palladian architecture. For the interior he designed a series of three prominent rooms with different functions, which were at different levels, and were decorated differently: the Apollo Hall, the spectator viewing area, and the stage. By technical means they could be turned into one large room for major festivities. Knobelsdorff described the technical features in a Berlin newspaper, proudly commenting that "this theater is one of the longest and widest in the world". In 1843 the building burned down to the foundation. In World War II it suffered several times from bombing. Each time the rebuilding followed Knobelsdorff's intentions, but there were also clear modifications of both the facing and the interior. Soon after they were completed, the opera house and St. Hedwig's Cathedral were featured in textbooks and manuals on architecture.
Tiergarten park and dairy