Forum Fridericianum Berlin: how a planned royal residence became a cultural forum

Historic Berlin was a twin-city comprising of Alt-Berlin and Cölln on either side of the river Spree. Both cities were surrounded by a single defensive structure. Such twin-cities are not unique, we only have to think of Budapest, Cologne-Deutz, Nuremberg (Lorenz and Sebald), Herzogenrath-Kirchrath and Bielsko-Biala. In 1670 the Elector Fredric William I of Brandenburg granted the Cöllnischer Tiergarten west of the city walls to his wife Dorothea Sofia of Sleswick-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. The area was deforested and streets were laid out in the following years. This Neustadt (literally: New City) was granted city rights in 1674 en was renamed Dorotheenstadt in honour of the Electress in 1781. South of Dorotheenstadt lies the second Electoral new town: Friedrichstadt named after Fredrick I of Brandenburg, King of Prussia. After the death of his father in 1688 prince-elector Fredrick (Friedrich) was granted the right to develop a new city outside of the city walls. This new city was founded in 1691 on the former floodplain of the Spree river. In 1710 the independent cities of Berlin, Cölln, Friedrichswerder, Dorotheeenstadt and Friedrichstadt were merged to form the Royal Residence and Capital City of Berlin.

In 1720 work started to construct new city defences around the united city. This meant that the old defences could be dismantled. On the site of a demolished bulwark close to the old City Palace (Altes Stadtschloss) a new ensemble of buildings was to be erected with a new Residential Palace at its core. The ensemble was aligned with the former hunting avenue of Unter den Linden, the central axis of Dorotheenstadt and comprised of a large three-winged building with two inner courtyards and a large cour d'honeur  surrounded by a semi-circular colonnade. In line with the wings the architect Knobelsdorff planned an Opera House and a Ball Hall. The royal ensemble was to be free-standing on an extensive monumental square. As the important thoroughfare of Unter den Linden ran across, the Residential Square was planned as a public space from the onset.

Work started shortly after the installation of Fredrick II as the new King of Prussia in 1740. The new king ordered the purchase of 54 houses in Dorotheenstadt, among them the Palace of the Margraves of Brandenburg-Schwedt a sideline of the ruling Hohenzollern family. The waterlogged ground and difficulties in acquiring noble residences lead to adaptations to the plan. The blatant refusals of the Margaves of Brandenburg-Schwedt led to a repositioning of the Opera House and the residential palace was moved further back and made less wide so the existing city residence of the Margraves would align with the western wing. The Ball Hall was redesigned as an Academy of Science. This was the beginning of a transition from a monumental residence towards a cultural forum. The first stone for the Opera House was laid on September 5th 1741. The central square thus became known as the Opernplatz (Opera Square).  The construction of the Hedwigskirche started directly after the end of the Silesian War in 1747. The residence was scaled down and in 1748 work began on the Prinz-Heinrich-Palais (Palace of Prince Henry). In 1774 the Brandenburg-Schwedt-Palais was offered for purchase and was demolished to make way for the Academy of Science. On the site of the former Royal Stables the Royal Library (Königliche Bibliothek) was built between 1775-1786.

In 1773 work had started to change the Lindenmarkt south of the Opernplatz after designs of Georg Christian Unger. The cuirassier regiment Gens d'Armes had had their barracks here. For the many French Huguenots living in Friedrichstadt a church modelled after the Huguenot temple of Charenton-Saint-Maurice was built on the Lindenmarkt between 1701-1708. At the same time the mirroring Neue Kirche (New Church) was built at the northern end of the market square. In 1785 a domed tower was added to the French Church to create a symmetrical image. In 1818 work started on building the Schauspielhaus (Theatre) between the two churches. In the same year the Neue Wache (New Watch) was added to the Forum to commemorate the Napoleonic Wars. The two squares together with the avenue of Unter den Linden structure the grid of the western elector-cities. These places became the focal point for introducing new official and representative buildings within the urban fabric of Berlin.

The name Forum Fridericianum wasn't used in the 18th century. Knobelsdorff makes a reference to the foro di frederigo. Later in the nineteenth century this term was taken up in art-historical literature , but in the Latin translation: Forum Fridericianum. The idea of a cultural forum was taken up in many capital cities as a spatial intervention on the edge of the formerly walled capital city.

Around 1800 plans are made to expand the cultural program by building new museums to showcase the artistic treasures held by the Prussian state and the Crown. This museum quarter was realised in Altkölnn (on the island of Cölln between Spree and Kupfergraben -the old city moat). The Altes Museum was built at the end of the Hofgarten at a right angle to the Stadtschloss in 1830. The Neues Museum, built directly behind the Old Museum,  was finished in 1859. The Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) was built next to this in 1876. In 1905 the baroque Supreme Parish Church was replaced with a new Cathedral: the Berliner Dom. The Pergamon Museum was finished in 1930, specifically to house treasures like the Pergamon Altar and the Ishtar Gate.

The Forum Fridericianum is located near the old residence of the Prussian rulers (1) across from the Hofgarten (Palace Gardens - 2).The hunting avenue (3) of Unter den Linden (literally: Under the Lime trees) ran from the Schlossplatz to the Tiergarten (a Deer park). It later formed the central axis of Dorotheenstadt. Within the old fortifications the Zeughaus (Arms House - 4), Kommandantenhaus (Commanders House - 5), Kronprinzenpalais (Crown Prince Palace - 6) and Kronprinzessinpalais (Crown Prinsess Palace - 7) stood. On the forum around the former Opernplatz we find the Opera House (8), the Neue Wache (9),the Prinz-Heinrich-Palais (10), the National Library (11), the Academy of Science (12) and Saint Hedwig Church (13). On the Gendarmenmarkt, the former Lindenmarkt, we find the French Church (14), the Theatre (15) and the Deutscher Dom (16). Near the Hofgarten we find the museum quarter with the Berliner Dom (17), the Altes Museum (18), the Neues Museum (19), the Alte Nationalgalerie (20) and the Pergamon Museum (21).

Albertopolis: a cultural forum for imperial London

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha the spouse of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was instrumental in organising the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851. To this end a large exhibition hall was erected: the Crystal Palace. The international exhibition was a phenomenal success and in the late 1980s Exhibition Road was constructed to commemorate the event. This new road extended southwards from the West Carriage Drive that separates Kensington Gardens from Hyde Park and cut through Kensington Gore, an area of fields and market gardens south of Kensington Gardens.

Prince Albert had a vision of an area devoted to the arts and sciences to be built near the Crystal Palace. The huge profits from the Great Exhibition made this vision much easier to realise. The new cultural forum of ‘Albertopolis’, as it was dubbed, was based on the Fredericianum in Berlin an eighteenth century cultural forum loosely modelled after classical examples. The Kensington Gore in what is now South Kensington was chosen as the site for its proximity to the exhibition grounds on the edge of Hyde Park. Albert also made the first sketches with a symmetrical arrangement of several large buildings and spacious squares between two more or less parallel roads: Exhibition Road and Queens gate. As Queens Gate was being laid out the plans were augmented by including two roads than compartmented the terrain in three more or less equally sized areas.

Building work on the cultural forum started east of Exhibition Road with the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum or V&A stands here) in 1852. The rest of Albertopolis was to serve as exhibition grounds with large halls for the 1862 and 1886 international exhibitions. Almost all the exhibition buildings have now vanished, the institutions that replaced them remain. The present Albertopolis is thus the second incarnation of this cultural forum.

Between 1868-73 the present-day Henry Cole Wing of the V&A was built after designs by Henry Scott with Henry Cole and Richard Redgrave as the School of Naval Architects. Henry Cole was the first director of the South Kensington Museum and a driving force behind the Great Exhibition. In 1978 the building was annexed by the V&A. and the name was changed. Before that the building had been occupied by the Science School and by Imperial College.

The strong central axis of Albertopolis was focussed on the Albert Memorial on the edge of Kensington Gardens. This freestanding memorial was erected between 1863-72 by Sir George Gilbert Scott in atypical amalgamation of stylistic elements to form a rather copious monument. Albert had died in 1861 and thus never saw the completion of his dream of an area devoted to art, science and architecture.

The Albert Hall was built as a Hall of the Arts and Sciences, between 1867-71 after designs by  Francis Fowke and H. Y. D. Scott. The building is an elliptical, drum-shaped auditorium with a circumference of 225 metres, topped with a vast dome. The central axis of the building is aligned with the Albert Memorial north of Kensington Road. It recalls Gottfried Sempers Dresden Opera (built 1837-41) in style.

By the 1870s Kensington was almost fully developed, apart from the area immediately around the Albert Hall. Lowther Lodge (1873) was originally planned as a generously proportioned town house for William Lowther MP. It was conceived as a country mansion,  set back behind an entrance court on the Hyde Park front. Since 1911 Lowther Lodge has been the headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society.

The Royal College of Organists (H. H. Cole, 1876) was built as the National Training School for Music and later became specifically devoted to organists. It was designed by Henry Cole’s son and is quite unique in appearance with the cream, pale blue and maroon sgraffito decoration.  The Jamaican High Commission by J. J. Stevenson on 29 Exhibition Road were completed in the same year in a fashionable style that loosely draws on English and Dutch buildings of about 1700. The whole is styled as a double house.

The so-called Albert Hall Mansions (Richard Norman Shaw, 1879) are luxurious red-brick apartments also executed in the new ‘Queen Anne’ style that was based on English and Dutch architecture of the early 18th century. As London had no tradition of apartment blocks for the middle and upper classes, Shaw took his floor plans from French examples. Several blocks comprise Albert Hall Mansions and together they wrap around the Albert Hall to appear like a fragment of a European city set down in London.

The 85-metre high Queen’s Tower on the central axis is the last remaining part of the magnificent Imperial Institute (T. E. Colcutt, 1887-93) that was founded as an outcome of the Colonial Exhibition of 1886. Despite the quality of Colcutt’s building in an expressive Renaissance revival style, the Institute was never successful and it was demolished in the 1950s and 1960s to make way for Imperial College.

Originating from collections within the British Museum, Natural History Museum, a landmark Alfred Waterhouse building, was opened in 1881. It was part of the British Museum until 1963 and was officially known as British Museum (Natural History) until 1992. The buildings large central hall (with the skeleton of a dinosaur) is positioned on the central axis of Albertopolis. It later incorporated the Geological Museum. The Darwin Centre is a more recent addition, partly designed as a modern facility for storing the valuable collections.

The Royal College of Music, designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield was built between 1889-94 on the central axis of Albertopolis and introduces a French baronial element into the eclectic mix of architecture styles. The Baroque revival building is still in use. The facade in red brick echoes the Albert Hall opposite and was picked up again by R. J. Worley for Albert Court, the neighbouring tall block of apartments (1894–1900).

The Royal School of Mines (Aston Webb, 1909-13) stands next to the Royal College of Music. It was designed in a Classical revival style with an over-scale niche as the entrance containing a huge monument to Alfred Beit and Julius Wernher.  Aston Webb was also responsible for the Cromwell Road front of the V&A built around 1907.

On 26 June 1909 the Science Museum became an independent entity from the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Science Museum's present quarters, designed by Sir Richard Allison, were opened in stages over the period 1919–28. This building was known as the East Block. As the name suggests it was intended to be the first building of a much larger project, which was never realized. However, the Museum buildings were expanded over the following years.

Albertopolis comprises of several institutes and housing (light grey).De central axis starts at the Albert Memorial (1) and runs through the Albert Hall (2). Nearby are the Royal College of Organists (3), Imperial College Union Building (4), Holy Trinity Church (5), the Albert Hall Mansions (6), Lowther Lodge (7) and the Jamaican High Commission (8). The central axis continues through the Royal College of Music (10) flanked by the Royal School of Mines (9) and Albert Court (11). Behind these building stood the Imperial Institute (12). Across from a large public garden (now built over) stood stand the Church of Jesus Christ (13) an the Science Museum (14). Nearby we find the School of Naval Architects(15) and the V&A (16). On the other side of Exhibition Road we find the Geological Museum (17 and the Natural History Museum (18).

Kaiserforum Vienna: crowning the emblematic Ringstraße

The Ringstraße, that with the Franz-Josef-Kai encircles the historic centre of Vienna, is one of the main tourist attractions of the city. This is no coincidence as this was part of the purpose this ceremonial belt road was designed for. Built on the former Glacis after the fortifications were dismantled between 1857 and '65 the Ringstraße was to be the focus of the newly modernised Vienna as a broad boulevard lined with trees and many representative buildings along it. The crowning glory was to be the Kaiserforum. The ideas for a new culltural forum were part of the planning from the beginning and were modelled after Albertopolis (1851-1907) in London.

The Kaiserforum within the context of the Ringstraße was to be an extension of the Hofburg palace towards the Hofstallungen as a large open space

The Kaiserforum is basically a large square at a right angle to the Ringstraße with several large buildings around it. The complex was designed by Gottfried Semper who also came up with the name. This Imperial Forum off course is an illusion to the classical Forum of Roman times. Sempers plans involved creating a formal space surrounded by a symmetrical ensemble of buildings. For this to work, the Hofburg Palace had to be given a new front facade as this building complex was little more than a collection of wings around courtyards in various styles. A new building tract would serve as a symmetrical facade with two new wings framing the open space north of the Ringstraße. On the southside the Hofstallungen (Royal Stables) designed by the baroque architect Fisher von Erlach would form the backdrop to the ensemble with two new wings on either side to frame the large square. A triumphal arch was also part of the design and marked the end of the northern square on the Ringstraße.

Work started on the remodelling of the stables to make them suitable for housing the imperial collection of paintings. This work was completed around 1865. In 1870 emperor Franz Joseph gave the go-ahead for the whole project and work started on the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History) and the Naturhistorisches Museum (Museum of Naturel History). This part of the Kaiserforum was finally completed in 1891. The rest of the large-scale cultural forum was also slow to be realised.

In 1913 the southern wing of the so-called Neue Burg (New Palace) was completed. The long time between completion and planning was partly due to the enormous costs involved, but it was also problematic to find a functional use for the vast buildings. The northern wing - the mirror image of the southern wing- was never built because of the outbreak of WWI and the subsequent foundation of the first Austrian Republic in 1918. The end of the monarchy also meant the end of royal patronage and thus the end of the Imperial Forum.  

The Kaiserforum now comprises of the Hofburg (H), the Hofstallungen (S), The Musuem of Art History (A), the Mueseum of Natural History (N), The Triumphal Arch (T) and the southwing of the Neue Burg (B). To the side ly the Volksgarten (V) with the Thetis temple and the Burggarten (B).

Recently plans have been put forward to complete the scheme as was intended by adding the northern wing on the Heldenplatz. This would definitely improve the space of the Forum itself, but also better define the Volksgarten, one of the parks that serve as wings to the cultural forum and thus embed the scheme within the Ringstraße.

Splendid Streets: Maxvorstadt Munich

Munich was founded near a monastery and named after these monks (apud Munichen). The city is first mention in 1158 when Henry the Lion Duke of Saxony and Bavaria grants the right to hold a market near the Isarbridge on the Salzstrasse (Salt Street) between Salzburg and Augsburg. Later the city was fortified and subsequently enlarged and again fortified. At the end of the 18th century the defences were decommissioned and torn town. This made it possible to expand the old city.

The Maxvorstadt comprises of a grid type urban extension that was to double the urban area of Munich. The scheme took several decades to complete. In the meantime several other suburbs (the literal translations of Vorstadt) were developed: Ludwigsvorstadt, Isarvorstadt, Schwanthalerhöhe and Haidhausen on the other side of the Isar.

The Maxvorstadt was planned between 1805 and 1810 on the instigation of the first Bavarian King Maximilian I Joseph, after whom the area was named. It was projected over a large flat area northwest of the old city between the old routes to the Marsfeld (a Military exercise ground), Nymphenburg Palace, Dachau, Schleissheim Palace and Freising. These old routes were formalised as straight streets within a grid layout.  The aim was to create a formal expansion that would serve as a beautiful addition to the medieval Altstadt.   

The old fortified city was surrounded by a wide moat that was fed by several brooks. The Mushroom shape is very distinct and came to be after the second large expansion of the city in the fourteenth century which was mostly located on the higher ground behind the older city.

The Briener Strasse would serve as the central axis of the new suburb connecting the road to Dachau and Schleissheim with a rotunda to the new entrance gate (1812) to the Hofgarten (Palace Gardens) behind the Münchener Residenz (Residential Palace). Along this route several formal ensembles were erected around several squares. The Königsplatz (Kings Square) on this axis was created as the centre of a new cultural hub, not unlike Albertopolis in London, the Kaiserforum in Vienna, the Forum Fredericianum in Berlin and the Royal Forum in Brussels. The queer axis starts at the Kaffeehaus in the Alter Botanischer Garten (1814) and ends at the gates of the Alter Nördlicher Friedhof (1866). The Maxvorstadt connects to the old city via a wide boulevard (Sonnenstrasse - 1812) and the Maximiliansplatz (1808), a long garden square that is part of this green boulevard. The boulevard stretches from the Sendlinger Tor, where a large square was created on the site of a former bulwark, to the Briener Strasse. A secondary axis links this garden square with the main axis of the Maxvorstadt at the Obelisk (1833).

Although the main focus was on the Maxvorstadt In the Southwest a second axial ensemble was created between the Sendlinger Tor (a former city gate) and a new general hospital (Algemeinen Krankenhaus - 1813) across a formal park. A third ensemble was created north of the city to separate the Maxvorstadt from the Englischer Garten. and tie the residential palace into the new scheme. It consists of a long axis, a so-called Prachtstrasse (literally: Splendid Street), that starts by the palace at the Feldherrnhalle (1844) next to the Palais Prysing (1728) and runs at a slightly different angle than the grid of the Maxvorstadt. Across from the Hofgarten a second ensemble was created consisting of the Odeonsplatz. The axis ended at the Siegestor (1852) a triumphal arch modelled after Marble arch. Before this the street widens to a square with the university buildings around it. Next to the Siegestor on a queer axis the Akademie der Bildende Künste (Academie of Fine Arts - 1808) was built.

Three axial ensembles connect to the quarter belt road (A) that links up to the Old Botanical Gardens (B) and the Maxplatz (C). The starting point is the Sendlinger Tor (1) from where an axis leads to the General Hospital (2). The culmination of the scheme is the Residenz with the Hofgarten (D).At the Hofgartentor (1) starts the central axis of the Maxvorstadt (in red). Next to this "Splendid Street" lies the Wittelsbacherplatz (2) with an Equestrian statue and flanked by the Odeon (1828), the Palais Ludwig-Ferdinand (1826) and the Palais Arco-Zinneberg (1820). The axis proceeds to meet the Obelisk (3) and beyond to the Königsplatz with the Glyptothek (4 - 1833), the Antikensammlungen (5 - 1848) and the Propylaea (6 - 1862), to end at a rotunda (7) on the Dachauerstrasse. The queer axis starts at the Kaffehaus (8), runs along the Königsplatz to the Alte Pinakothek (9 - 1836) and Neue Pinakothek (1853) to end at the gatehouses of the Northern Cemetery (10 - 1866) and served effectively as the backbone to the development of the Kunstareal. The third axis (in orange) was also meant as a "Splendid Street" lined with official and representative buildings. The axis of the Ludwigstrasse starts at the Feldherrnhalle (1) along the Odeonsplatz (2) with the Odeon, the Palais Ludwig-Ferdinand and the Palais Leuchtenberg (1821). The Hofgartengalerie (3 - 1853) stands opposite. The street was lined with ministerial building and civic buildings like the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Bavarian State-Library) completed in 1839 (6). The splendid street crosses the Ludwigsforum (4) with on its westside the main building of the Ludwig-Maximilian University (1835) and on the westside the Georgianum (1840) and the Veterinary Institute (1840s) to end at the Siegestor (5). Next to this triumphal arch stand the Academy of fine Arts (7).