Schloss Britz
Encyclopedia
The Schloss Britz is the former manor
-house of the historical Rittergut (country estate) and village Britz, now a district of Berlin-Neukölln
. Today it is the domicile of the cultural foundation Kulturstiftung Schloss Britz and includes in his originally reconstructed rooms from around 1880 a museum for interiors of the Gründerzeit
. The manorial park
is also well preserved with his mature trees and his 1890’s trails system. In 1997 the park was honoured with the German Gustav-Meyer-Price for the accuracy and historical authenticity of the reconstruction.
The old farmyard with stables and smithy and the industrial section of the 19th century with a chimney of a brewery and some storehouses are preserved too and in the final phase of reconstruction and will provide space and rooms for further cultural institutions of Berlin-Neukölln in the future.
). Until the end of the 17th century the country estate was the fiefdom
of the knight
family von Britzke. Due to the distributions of the estate and the devastating consequences of the Thirty Years' War
the family was forced to sell the estate to the Prussia
n crown in 1699.
The later king Friedrich I.(Frederick I of Prussia
) benefits his minister Samuel von Chwalkowski with the manor. Around 1706 Chwalkowski finished the new manor stone house, which would be the core of the building until today. In 1717 the manor was given the prestigious allodial title
. In the 18th century the Britz Manor (Schloss Britz) was in the property of Heinrich Rüdiger von Ilgen and the count
Ewald Friedrich von Hertzberg, beside other noble families. Ilgen owned the manor from 1719 until his death 1728 and served as minister for foreign affairs under different Prussian kings. From 1763 until 1791 Hertzberg was a leading minister of the crown cabinet and to the foreign affairs under Friedrich II. (Frederick II of Prussia
) and was using the estate from 1751 until his death as his country estate. He was not only establishing one of the first silk
productions of Prussia in Britz, he ordered the historian painter Bernhard Rode
to shape the manor-house with a hole new décor of frescos and paintings praising the live of a statesman as a landlord.
In the 19th century the estate came into the property of civil fabricants. From 1824 until 1857 the Silk trader Johann Carl Jouanne was living with his family the year-round in the manor house and rebuilt the whole house after his requirements. Therefore nearly all of the older baroque
décors were destroyed and only some paintings of Rode survived. Also around 1840 the buildings of the farmyard were given their present appearance in the style of Italian country mansions following the example of the Bornstedt Crown Estate
(Krongut Bornstedt) near Potsdam. Under Jouanne the first brewery was built on the farmyard to produce hard liquor out of potatoes (Kartoffelschnaps) which increased the agricultural commodities because of the draff and provide him an additional income. From 1880 to 1883 under the last private owner of the manor Wilhelm A. J. Wrede, a trader and producer of sugar
and hard liquor, the manor house was given his final and today appearance as a little castle or château
in the style of the Neo-Renaissance
. The Berliner architect Carl Busse reshaped the house into a representative upper-class home with a new bath, stair tower and a magnificent new interior in the different styles of the German Historicism
. These can be seen today in the rooms of the museum, also displaying furniture and objects of this time, like an original lincrusta
wallpaper, which is rare in Germany and one of the few remaining Victorian crystal perpetual table fountains produced by J. DEFRIES & SONS in London http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1026/is_4_173/ai_n25396957.
In 1924 the whole estate were sold to the city of Berlin. After World War II. the Schloss Britz served as a refugee house and from the fifties on as a children's home. In 1971 the manor house and later the park and the remaining farmyard buildings were declared as historic monuments and after the renovation from 1985 to 1988 the manor house was first opened to the public. From this time on the manor house was hosting many cultural events and served also as a guest house for the borough office of Neukölln.
of the manor stands out in his three hundred continuous history which can be seen still today in many details. In the beginning of the 18th century the park was one of the typical baroque parks, following the examples of the Netherlands which combines elements of a fruit and vegetable garden with that of a pleasure garden. His central alley of lime trees is still remaining. Like the manor-house the park was given his today appearance with the winding path system, exotic potted plants and a fountain in the last decade of the 19th century. Upon the mature tree population a Ginkgo tree has to be mentioned as one of the oldest ones in Germany, the tree was probably planted at the beginning of the 19th century. The visitor can find also in the park a bust of the former owner Heinrich Rüdiger von Ilgen. It is a copy of a sculpture which was made 1902 by Rudolf Siemering
for the Siegesallee
(Victory Avenue).
sculpture made by Pavel Sokolov which he created originally in 1816 for the park of the Catherine Palace
in Tsarskoye Selo
, near Saint Petersburg
. It is called The Milkmaid. The copy was donated in 1998 to Schloss Britz celebrating the anniversary of ten years in partnership between the Kulturstiftung Schloss Britz and the State Museums of Tsarskoye Selo. The sculpture of a moaning girl with a broken pot is the depiction of the end in the French fable
Le pot à lait (The Milk Pan) from the 17th century writer Jean de La Fontaine
. This fable was transferred into a German version Die Milchfrau (The Milkmaid) by the author Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim
in the 18th century.
The fable reflects upon the futility of daydreams without recognizing reality or the facts. A milkmaid was on the way to the market with a pot full of milk and making great plans for the money she would earn for the milk. Therefore she was lost in her own imaginations of future pleasures and fortunes that she missed a step and dropped the pot, which cracked on the ground and all the milk and future plans were perished, leaving her with nothing but moaning. In Germany this has become a common saying, known as the Milchmädchenrechnung http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Milchm%C3%A4dchenrechnung for naïve and false conclusions.
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
-house of the historical Rittergut (country estate) and village Britz, now a district of Berlin-Neukölln
Neukölln
Neukölln is the eighth borough of Berlin, located in the southeastern part of the city and was part of the former American sector under the Four-Power occupation of the city...
. Today it is the domicile of the cultural foundation Kulturstiftung Schloss Britz and includes in his originally reconstructed rooms from around 1880 a museum for interiors of the Gründerzeit
Gründerzeit
' refers to the economic phase in 19th century Germany and Austria before the great stock market crash of 1873. At this time in Central Europe the age of industrialisation was taking place, whose beginnings were found in the 1840s...
. The manorial park
Park
A park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state, or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas. Many parks are legally protected by...
is also well preserved with his mature trees and his 1890’s trails system. In 1997 the park was honoured with the German Gustav-Meyer-Price for the accuracy and historical authenticity of the reconstruction.
The old farmyard with stables and smithy and the industrial section of the 19th century with a chimney of a brewery and some storehouses are preserved too and in the final phase of reconstruction and will provide space and rooms for further cultural institutions of Berlin-Neukölln in the future.
History
The village Britz is first mentioned in 1373 in the book (Landbuch) of the Mark Brandenburg properties of Kaiser Karl IV (Charles IV, Holy Roman EmperorCharles IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles IV , born Wenceslaus , was the second king of Bohemia from the House of Luxembourg, and the first king of Bohemia to also become Holy Roman Emperor....
). Until the end of the 17th century the country estate was the fiefdom
Fiefdom
A fee was the central element of feudalism and consisted of heritable lands granted under one of several varieties of feudal tenure by an overlord to a vassal who held it in fealty in return for a form of feudal allegiance and service, usually given by the...
of the knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
family von Britzke. Due to the distributions of the estate and the devastating consequences of the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
the family was forced to sell the estate to the Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n crown in 1699.
The later king Friedrich I.(Frederick I of Prussia
Frederick I of Prussia
Frederick I , of the Hohenzollern dynasty, was Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia in personal union . The latter function he upgraded to royalty, becoming the first King in Prussia . From 1707 he was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...
) benefits his minister Samuel von Chwalkowski with the manor. Around 1706 Chwalkowski finished the new manor stone house, which would be the core of the building until today. In 1717 the manor was given the prestigious allodial title
Allodial title
Allodial title constitutes ownership of real property that is independent of any superior landlord, but it should not be confused with anarchy as the owner of allodial land is not independent of his sovereign...
. In the 18th century the Britz Manor (Schloss Britz) was in the property of Heinrich Rüdiger von Ilgen and the count
Count
A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is...
Ewald Friedrich von Hertzberg, beside other noble families. Ilgen owned the manor from 1719 until his death 1728 and served as minister for foreign affairs under different Prussian kings. From 1763 until 1791 Hertzberg was a leading minister of the crown cabinet and to the foreign affairs under Friedrich II. (Frederick II of Prussia
Frederick II of Prussia
Frederick II was a King in Prussia and a King of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also Elector of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...
) and was using the estate from 1751 until his death as his country estate. He was not only establishing one of the first silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
productions of Prussia in Britz, he ordered the historian painter Bernhard Rode
Bernhard Rode
Bernhard Rode was a Prussian artist and engraver well-known for portraying historical scenes and allegorical works. He knew most of the central figures in the Berlin Enlightenment as Friedrich Nicolai and Gotthold Lessing, and the philosophical and political discussions of the Berlin Philosophs...
to shape the manor-house with a hole new décor of frescos and paintings praising the live of a statesman as a landlord.
In the 19th century the estate came into the property of civil fabricants. From 1824 until 1857 the Silk trader Johann Carl Jouanne was living with his family the year-round in the manor house and rebuilt the whole house after his requirements. Therefore nearly all of the older baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
décors were destroyed and only some paintings of Rode survived. Also around 1840 the buildings of the farmyard were given their present appearance in the style of Italian country mansions following the example of the Bornstedt Crown Estate
Bornstedt Crown Estate
The Bornstedt Crown Estate is a landmark in the Potsdam borough of Bornstedt. It belongs to the enemble of palaces and gardens of Sanssouci, lying on the Bornstedter See, only 400 meters away from Sanssouci Palace....
(Krongut Bornstedt) near Potsdam. Under Jouanne the first brewery was built on the farmyard to produce hard liquor out of potatoes (Kartoffelschnaps) which increased the agricultural commodities because of the draff and provide him an additional income. From 1880 to 1883 under the last private owner of the manor Wilhelm A. J. Wrede, a trader and producer of sugar
Sugar
Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...
and hard liquor, the manor house was given his final and today appearance as a little castle or château
Château
A château is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor or a country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally—and still most frequently—in French-speaking regions...
in the style of the Neo-Renaissance
Neo-Renaissance
Renaissance Revival is an all-encompassing designation that covers many 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Grecian nor Gothic but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of classicizing Italian modes...
. The Berliner architect Carl Busse reshaped the house into a representative upper-class home with a new bath, stair tower and a magnificent new interior in the different styles of the German Historicism
Historicism
Historicism is a mode of thinking that assigns a central and basic significance to a specific context, such as historical period, geographical place and local culture. As such it is in contrast to individualist theories of knowledges such as empiricism and rationalism, which neglect the role of...
. These can be seen today in the rooms of the museum, also displaying furniture and objects of this time, like an original lincrusta
Lincrusta
Lincrusta is a deeply embossed wallcovering. A British invention, it was the brainchild of inventor Frederick Walton who earlier patented linoleum floor covering. Lincrusta was launched in 1877 and was used in a host of applications from royal homes to railway carriages. The linseed gel continues...
wallpaper, which is rare in Germany and one of the few remaining Victorian crystal perpetual table fountains produced by J. DEFRIES & SONS in London http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1026/is_4_173/ai_n25396957.
In 1924 the whole estate were sold to the city of Berlin. After World War II. the Schloss Britz served as a refugee house and from the fifties on as a children's home. In 1971 the manor house and later the park and the remaining farmyard buildings were declared as historic monuments and after the renovation from 1985 to 1988 the manor house was first opened to the public. From this time on the manor house was hosting many cultural events and served also as a guest house for the borough office of Neukölln.
The Park
The 1,8 hectares sized parkPark
A park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state, or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas. Many parks are legally protected by...
of the manor stands out in his three hundred continuous history which can be seen still today in many details. In the beginning of the 18th century the park was one of the typical baroque parks, following the examples of the Netherlands which combines elements of a fruit and vegetable garden with that of a pleasure garden. His central alley of lime trees is still remaining. Like the manor-house the park was given his today appearance with the winding path system, exotic potted plants and a fountain in the last decade of the 19th century. Upon the mature tree population a Ginkgo tree has to be mentioned as one of the oldest ones in Germany, the tree was probably planted at the beginning of the 19th century. The visitor can find also in the park a bust of the former owner Heinrich Rüdiger von Ilgen. It is a copy of a sculpture which was made 1902 by Rudolf Siemering
Rudolf Siemering
Rudolph Siemering was a German sculptor known for his works in Germany and the United States.-Biography:...
for the Siegesallee
Siegesallee
The Siegesallee was a broad boulevard in Berlin, Germany. About 750 m in length, it ran northwards through the Tiergarten park from Kemperplatz , to Königsplatz, in which stood the Berlin Victory Column, in its original position in front of the Reichstag The Siegesallee (German for "Victory...
(Victory Avenue).
Milkmaid
There is also a bronze copy of a neo-classicalNeoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
sculpture made by Pavel Sokolov which he created originally in 1816 for the park of the Catherine Palace
Catherine Palace
The Catherine Palace was the Rococo summer residence of the Russian tsars, located in the town of Tsarskoye Selo , 25 km south-east of St. Petersburg, Russia.- History :...
in Tsarskoye Selo
Tsarskoye Selo
Tsarskoye Selo is the town containing a former Russian residence of the imperial family and visiting nobility, located south from the center of St. Petersburg. It is now part of the town of Pushkin and of the World Heritage Site Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments.-History:In...
, near Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
. It is called The Milkmaid. The copy was donated in 1998 to Schloss Britz celebrating the anniversary of ten years in partnership between the Kulturstiftung Schloss Britz and the State Museums of Tsarskoye Selo. The sculpture of a moaning girl with a broken pot is the depiction of the end in the French fable
Fable
A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized , and that illustrates a moral lesson , which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.A fable differs from...
Le pot à lait (The Milk Pan) from the 17th century writer Jean de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine was the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional...
. This fable was transferred into a German version Die Milchfrau (The Milkmaid) by the author Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim
Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim
Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim was a German poet.- Life :Gleim was born at Ermsleben near Halberstadt. Having studied law at the University of Halle he became secretary to Prince William of Brandenburg-Schwedt at Berlin, where he made the acquaintance of Ewald von Kleist, whose devoted friend he...
in the 18th century.
The fable reflects upon the futility of daydreams without recognizing reality or the facts. A milkmaid was on the way to the market with a pot full of milk and making great plans for the money she would earn for the milk. Therefore she was lost in her own imaginations of future pleasures and fortunes that she missed a step and dropped the pot, which cracked on the ground and all the milk and future plans were perished, leaving her with nothing but moaning. In Germany this has become a common saying, known as the Milchmädchenrechnung http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Milchm%C3%A4dchenrechnung for naïve and false conclusions.
Literatur
- Matthias Barth: Herrenhäuser und Landsitze in Brandenburg und Berlin. Von der Renaissance bis zum Jugendstil. Würzburg 2008, S. 26-29. ISBN 978-3-87057-292-1
- Anton F. Büsching: Beschreibung seiner Reise von Berlin über Potsdam nach Rekahn unweit Brandenburg, welche er vom 3. bis 8 Junius 1775 gethan hat. Frankfurt und Leipzig 1780.
- Freunde und Förderer Schloss Britz e. V. (Hrsg.): 300 Jahre Schloss Britz. Ewald Friedrich Graf von Hertzberg und die Berliner Aufklärung. Berlin 2006. ISBN 978-3-00-018846-6.
- Kulturstiftung Schloss Britz / Freunde und Förderer Schloss Britz e. V. (Hrsg.): Der Garten zu Britz. Seine Entwicklungsgeschichte von den Anfängen bis heute. Berlin 1998.
- Friedrich Nicolai: Beschreibung der königlichen Residenzstädte Berlin und Potsdam, aller daselbst befindlicher Merkwürdigkeiten und der umliegenden Gegend. Berlin 1786.
External links
- Schloss Britz
- „Berlin-Neukölln, seine Geschichte und Denkmale – Britz“, Broschüre (Archiv/Publikationen), BSG Brandenburgische Stadterneuerungsgesellschaft mbH, 2000
- Geschichte von Schloss Britz