Communs and colonnades / Colonnades, St. Peter's Square
This architecture could hardly be more impressive: two symmetrically arranged palace-like pavilions topped with domes, columns in front of their entrances and outside staircases sweeping up to them. They're connected by a semicircular colonnade with a 24 metre-tall triumphal arch in the middle.
Simple utility buildings
Here you're immediately reminded of Rome, of St. Peter's Square with its colonnades, a masterpiece by the architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini. There they frame the square in front of St. Peter's Basilica, the centre of the Roman Catholic church.
And here in Potsdam? It scarcely believable, but the magnificent pavilions across from the New Palace are nothing more than utility buildings, the Communs. This is where servants lived and the court administration worked. And just imagine: the royal kitchens were located on the ground floor of the left Commun. The food, which was taken to the palace over the courtyard and later through a subterranean tunnel, was certainly cold by the time it reached its destination.
Frederick's Rome of the north
The Communs with the colonnades at the western end of Sanssouci Park look like a stage set. They strengthen the impression that Frederick wanted to turn Potsdam into the Rome of the north. The architect who designed the complex in 1766 was Carl von Gontard.
From the two domes, the goddesses Fama and Fortuna gleam as golden figures for miles around. They proclaim Frederick's fame, very much as they would have done for the Caesars, the emperors in ancient Rome – who served Frederick as the measure for his own grandeur.
The Communs with the colonnades is one of the stops on the audio tour Italy in Potsdam, which was developed as a city tour for the Barberini App on the occasion of the exhibition Baroque Pathways (13.7.-6.10.2019). The tour, narrated by TV host Günther Jauch, invites visitors to discover 30 buildings and works of art around the Museum Barberini that were created in the 18th and 19th centuries based on Italian models. Download the Barberini App and let yourself be surprised by the many Italian facets of this city.