Self-guided Sightseeing Tour #5 in Potsdam, Germany

Sanssouci is a historical building in Potsdam, near Berlin. Built by Prussian King Frederick the Great as his summer palace, it is often counted among the German rivals of Versailles. While Sanssouci is in the more intimate Rococo style and is far smaller than its French Baroque counterpart, it, too, is notable for the numerous temples and follies in the surrounding park. The palace was designed and built by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff between 1745 and 1747 to meet Frederick's need for a private residence where he could escape the pomp and ceremony of the royal court. The palace's name is a French phrase meaning "without worries" or "carefree", emphasising that the palace was meant as a place of relaxation rather than a seat of power.

Wikipedia: Sanssouci (EN), Website, Heritage Website

Charlottenhof Palace or Charlottenhof Manor is a former royal palace located southwest of Sanssouci Palace in Sanssouci Park at Potsdam, Germany. It is best known as the summer residence of Crown Prince Frederick William. Today it is maintained by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg.

Wikipedia: Charlottenhof Palace (EN)

The Protestant Church of the Redeemer is located in Potsdam's Brandenburger Vorstadt district at the intersection of Nansenstraße / Meistersingerstraße. The slender tower with its 74 meters height is a landmark of the Brandenburg suburb and can be seen from afar.

Wikipedia: Erlöserkirche (Potsdam) (DE), Website, Heritage Website

The former steam engine house for Sanssouci – also known as the "pump house" or "mosque" – is located in Potsdam on the Neustadt Havel Bay. It was built at the request of King Frederick William IV in the years from 1841 to 1843 under the direction of Ludwig Persius for the operation of the Great Fountain in front of Sanssouci Palace. It is one of the Historical Landmarks of Engineering in Germany and is an outstanding example of Orientalizing architecture.

Wikipedia: Dampfmaschinenhaus für Sanssouci (DE), Heritage Website

The Seerose Potsdam is a waterfront pavilion in Potsdam, Germany. The eight-fold curved roof structure in the form of a leaf rosette is a hypar shell construction and was designed by civil engineer Ulrich Müther. The building was placed under monument protection by the Brandenburg State Monuments Office on 21 December 2004. The architectural style of the water lily is assigned to organic architecture.

Wikipedia: Seerose Potsdam (DE), Heritage Website

The Predigerwitwenhaus is a listed building in the northern city center of Potsdam, Breite Straße 14 [formerly 25].

Wikipedia: Predigerwitwenhaus (Potsdam) (DE), Heritage Website

Hiller-Brandt houses are the buildings completed in 1769 at Breite Straße 8 to 12 in Potsdam. King Frederick II had the two town houses rebuilt with a uniform façade according to plans by Georg Christian Unger and expanded by a barracks. The building is named after its users, the merchant Johann Friedrich Hiller and the master tailor Johann Gebhardt Brandt. Since the renovation, the listed building has housed rental and owner-occupied apartments since 2013.

Wikipedia: Hiller-Brandtsche Häuser (DE), Heritage Website

The Potsdam carillon on the plantation in Potsdam, is the replica of the historic carillon of the Garrison Church about 200 meters north of the original location. It has been a listed building since July 2021.

Wikipedia: Potsdamer Glockenspiel (DE)

The Brockessche Haus, also referred to as the Brockessches or Brock'sches Palais in recent publications, is a listed residential and manufactory building in the city centre of Potsdam. It was built in 1776 according to the design of Carl von Gontard on the street Am Kanal with subsidies from Frederick II for the glass cutter Johann Christoph Brockes. After numerous changes of ownership and a longer vacancy, the palace was completely restored by the end of 2016 in accordance with the requirements of a listed building and has since served as a residential building.

Wikipedia: Brockessches Haus (DE), Heritage Website

The carriage horse stable is an architectural monument on the Neuer Markt in Potsdam. It was built in the years 1787–1789 by Andreas Ludwig Krüger in the style of classicism. The former stable for the carriage horses of the city palace ensemble has been home to the House of Brandenburg-Prussian History since 2003.

Wikipedia: Kutschpferdestall (DE), Heritage Website

The marble sculpture Monument to the Unknown Deserter was created in 1989 at the instigation of the "Bonn Peace Plenum" by the Turkish sculptor Mehmet Aksoy, who was living in Berlin at the time.

Wikipedia: Deserteurdenkmal (Bonn/Potsdam) (DE), Website

The Platz der Einheit is one of the oldest squares in Potsdam, along with Bassinplatz and the Plantage. Laid out under the Soldier King Friedrich Wilhelm I, the square is bordered by the Wilhelmgalerie in the north, residential buildings in the east, the street Am Kanal in the south and the Friedrich-Ebert-Straße in the west. It is an important public transport hub.

Wikipedia: Platz der Einheit (Potsdam) (DE)

St. Nicholas Church in Potsdam is a Lutheran church under the Evangelical Church in Berlin, Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia of the Evangelical Church in Germany on the Old Market Square in Potsdam. The central plan building in the Classicist style and dedicated to Saint Nicholas was built to plans by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in the years 1830 to 1837. The tambour of the 77-metre-high church that towers above the roofs of the city was built later, from 1843 to 1850. Its construction was taken over by Ludwig Persius and, from 1845, Friedrich August Stüler.

Wikipedia: St. Nicholas Church, Potsdam (EN), Website, Heritage Website

The Old Market Square is a centrally located square in downtown Potsdam which forms the historical centre of the city. The square consists of the area around St. Nicholas' Church. Today the term refers in particular to the area directly in front of the church. It is bordered by several prestigious historical buildings. The square has been the site of much architectural reconstruction work in recent years which has restored much historic building fabric that was lost in World War Two.

Wikipedia: Old Market Square, Potsdam (EN), Heritage Website

The Extavium, the so-called hands-on world, is a scientific, didactic institution with an exhibition in Potsdam.

Wikipedia: Extavium (DE), Facebook, Instagram, Website, Youtube

The Protestant French Church in Potsdam is a late work by the architect Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff. In the Edict of Potsdam (1685), the Great Elector had offered the Huguenots who had fled France a new home in Prussia. In 1752/53 the church was built for the gradually growing French Reformed congregation of Potsdam. Since the heavy destruction of the city in the Second World War, it has been the oldest surviving church in the historic city area.

Wikipedia: Französische Kirche (Potsdam) (DE), Website, Website En, Website Fr, Heritage Website, Website Nl

The Alte Wache is an early classicist building in Potsdam, Germany. It was built on behalf of King Frederick William II in 1795–97 according to plans by Andreas Ludwig Krüger.

Wikipedia: Alte Wache (Potsdam) (DE), Heritage Website

Höfer's music box is a music box in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany.

Wikipedia: Höfers Spieluhr (DE), Website

The Brandenburg Gate on the Luisenplatz in Potsdam, not to be confused with the gate of the same name on Berlin's Pariser Platz, was built in 1770–71 by Carl von Gontard and Georg Christian Unger by order of Frederick II of Prussia, to celebrate his several victories in the Seven Years' War.

Wikipedia: Brandenburg Gate (Potsdam) (EN), Heritage Website

The Church of St. Peter and Paul is a Roman Catholic church located in the centre of Potsdam, Germany. It sits at the eastern end of Brandenburger Street, at the western end of which is the Potsdamer Brandenburger Gate. The present church building was completed in 1870 and served the Potsdam parishioners and the Catholic soldiers who were stationed in the city. Since 1992 it has had the status of a provost church.

Wikipedia: Peter and Paul Church, Potsdam (EN), Website, Heritage Website

The Dutch Quarter is a neighborhood in Potsdam, consisting of 134 red Dutch brick buildings, almost all of which have been renovated.

Wikipedia: Dutch Quarter (EN)

The Jan Bouman House is a museum located at Mittelstraße 8 in the Dutch Quarter in Potsdam. It was named after the Royal Prussian Chief Planning Director and master builder of the district, Jan Bouman.

Wikipedia: Jan Bouman Haus (DE), Website

The Villa Berliner Straße 133, the so-called Red Villa, is an upper-middle-class residential building in the Berlin suburb of Potsdam and is a listed building.

Wikipedia: Villa Berliner Straße 133 (DE), Heritage Website

The Waschhaus is the largest nightclub of the Brandenburg state capital Potsdam in Germany.

Wikipedia: Waschhaus (EN), Website

The Hans Otto Theatre, named after the actor Hans Otto, is a municipal theatre in Potsdam in Germany. Its headquarters and main venue is in the Großes Haus am Tiefen See in Potsdam's cultural district on Schiffbauergasse. Other regular venues are the neighbouring historic Reithalle and occasionally the Palace Theatre in the Neues Palais.

Wikipedia: Hans Otto Theatre (EN), Website

The theater ship Potsdam is a former inland ship converted into a theater in Potsdam.

Wikipedia: Theaterschiff Potsdam (DE), Facebook, Website, Foursquare

The museum FLUXUS+ is located in Potsdam, Germany and opened in the city's new cultural centre Schiffbauergasse in April 2008. It is Potsdam's first museum of modern art. The 1000 sqm exhibition space of the two-storey building comprehends artworks from private collections. With its large art+life-shop, its café, an “atrium” for temporary exhibitions and events, the museum FLUXUS+ has become a cultural meeting point not only for artists and art-lovers.

Wikipedia: Museum FLUXUS+ (EN), Website

The Gerichtslaube is a historic building in the Babelsberg district of Potsdam, which was built in the 13th century as an extension to the Old Town Hall in Berlin. Centuries later, as a result of the construction of the new town hall in 1871, the building took on a life of its own, whereby the original building was moved to the park of Babelsberg and later reshaped there. In the rebuilt Berlin Nikolaiviertel there is a copy made of modern materials, which is used as a restaurant and bears the name Zur Gerichtslaube.

Wikipedia: Gerichtslaube (Berlin) (DE)

Babelsberg Park is a 114 hectare park in the northeast of the city of Potsdam, bordering on the Tiefen See lake on the River Havel. The park was first designed by the landscape artist Peter Joseph Lenné and, after him, by Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau and Karl Friedrich Schinkel, by order of the then-prince William I and his wife, Augusta. Located on a hill sloping down to the lake, the park and castle are part of the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin, which were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List because of their unique architecture and testimony to the development of landscape design.

Wikipedia: Babelsberg Park (EN), Heritage Website

Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) is a German research institute. It is the successor of the Berlin Observatory founded in 1700 and of the Astrophysical Observatory Potsdam (AOP) founded in 1874. The latter was the world's first observatory to emphasize explicitly the research area of astrophysics. The AIP was founded in 1992, in a re-structuring following the German reunification.

Wikipedia: Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (EN), Website, Heritage Website