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    Brandenburg Gate

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    calina
    The Brandenburg Gate is one of Berlin's most iconic landmarks. It was commissioned by King Frederick William II of Prussia in the late 18th century as a sign of peace and built based on the design of the Propylaea in Athens. Topped with the Quadriga sculpture, the Brandenburg Gate has played different roles in German history but its design has remained largely unchanged. It survived World War II with damage and was restored after the war and German reunification. Today it stands at the end of Unter den Linden boulevard as a symbol of Berlin.

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    Brandenburg Gate

    Uploaded by

    calina
    133 views3 pages
    The Brandenburg Gate is one of Berlin's most iconic landmarks. It was commissioned by King Frederick William II of Prussia in the late 18th century as a sign of peace and built based on the design of the Propylaea in Athens. Topped with the Quadriga sculpture, the Brandenburg Gate has played different roles in German history but its design has remained largely unchanged. It survived World War II with damage and was restored after the war and German reunification. Today it stands at the end of Unter den Linden boulevard as a symbol of Berlin.

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    Brandenburg Gate

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    The Brandenburg Gate is one of Berlin's most iconic landmarks. It was commissioned by King Frederick William II of Prussia in the late 18th century as a sign of peace and built based on the design of the Propylaea in Athens. Topped with the Quadriga sculpture, the Brandenburg Gate has played different roles in German history but its design has remained largely unchanged. It survived World War II with damage and was restored after the war and German reunification. Today it stands at the end of Unter den Linden boulevard as a symbol of Berlin.

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    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    133 views3 pages

    Brandenburg Gate

    Uploaded by

    calina
    The Brandenburg Gate is one of Berlin's most iconic landmarks. It was commissioned by King Frederick William II of Prussia in the late 18th century as a sign of peace and built based on the design of the Propylaea in Athens. Topped with the Quadriga sculpture, the Brandenburg Gate has played different roles in German history but its design has remained largely unchanged. It survived World War II with damage and was restored after the war and German reunification. Today it stands at the end of Unter den Linden boulevard as a symbol of Berlin.

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    The Brandenburg Gate

    The Brandenburg Gate (German: Brandenburger Tor) is a former city gate and one of the main symbols of Berlin and Germany. It is located west of the city center at the junction of Unter den Linden and Ebertstrae, immediately west of the Pariser Platz. It is the only remaining gate of a series through which one formerly entered Berlin. One block to the north stands the Reichstag building. The gate is the monumental entry to Unter den Linden, the renowned boulevard of linden trees which formerly led directly to the city palace of the Prussian monarchs. It was commissioned by King Frederick William II of Prussia as a sign of peace and built by Carl Gotthard Langhans from 1788 to 1791. The Brandenburg Gate was restored from 2000 to 2002 by the Stiftung Denkmalschutz Berlin (Berlin Monument Conservation Foundation). Today, it is considered one of Europe's most famous landmarks. 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 Thor, St. Georgen Thor, Stralower Thor, Copernicker Thor, Neue Thor, and Leipziger Thor (see map). Relative peace, a policy of religious tolerance, and status as capital of the Kingdom of Prussia facilitated the growth of the city. The Brandenburg Gate consists of twelve Doric columns, six to each side, forming five passageways.Citizens originally were allowed to use only the outermost two. Atop the gate is the Quadriga, a chariot drawn by four horses driven by Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory. 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 "Athens on the River Spree" by architect Carl Gotthard von Langhans. The capital Quadriga was sculpted by Johann Gottfried Schadow. The Brandenburg Gate's design has remained essentially unchanged since its completion even as it has played different political roles in German history. After the 1806 Prussian defeat at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, Napoleon took the Quadriga to Paris.[1] After Napoleon's defeat in 1814 and the Prussian occupation of Paris by General Ernst von Pfuel, the Quadriga was restored to Berlin and Victoria's wreath of oak leaves was supplemented with a new symbol of Prussian power, the Iron Cross. The Quadriga faces east, as it did when it was originally installed in 1793. At that time, only the royal family was allowed to pass through the central archway, as well as members of the Pfuel family from 1814 to 1919. In addition, the central archway was also used by the coaches of Ambassadors on the single occasion of their presenting their letters of credence to the monarch. When the Nazis ascended to power they used the Gate as a party symbol. The Gate survived World War II and was one of the few structures standing in the Pariser Platz ruins in 1945 (another being

    the Academy of Fine Arts). The gate was badly damaged with holes in the columns from bullets and nearby explosions. Following Germany's surrender and the end of the war, the governments of East Berlin and West Berlin restored it in a joint effort. The holes were patched, and were visible for many years following the war. In 1990, the Quadriga was removed from the gate as part of renovation work carried out by the East German authorities. On December 21, 2000, the Brandenburg Gate was privately refurbished at a cost of six million dollars (U.S.). On October 3, 2002, the twelfth anniversary of German Reunification, the Brandenburg Gate was once again reopened following extensive refurbishment. The Brandenburg Gate is now again closed for vehicle traffic, and much of Pariser Platz has been turned into a cobblestone pedestrian zone.

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