New Chambers, Museum at Sanssouci Park, Germany
The New Chambers is a single-storey building with a bright yellow facade on a stone base, standing west of Sanssouci Palace. Its central section carries a green and gold domed tower with a clock and a small golden figure, with sculpted stone figures clustered at its foot. Seven tall arched windows flank the centre on the left and eight on the right; a windmill rises behind the left wing.
Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff designed the orangery built at this site in 1747 under Jan Bouman, 110 metres long and 6.5 metres high, where the terrace plants overwintered in seven halls. From 1771 to 1775 Georg Christian Unger rebuilt it for Frederick the Great into four festival halls and a guest wing, adding the cupola to match the Picture Gallery opposite. It opened as a museum in 1924 and was closed for restoration from 1963 to 1987.
The Ovid Gallery, the eastern ballroom, is lined on one long side by a mirror reaching almost to the ceiling, facing French doors onto the garden. Frederick the Great had its walls decorated with gilded reliefs of the amorous adventures of the ancient gods as told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. The work came from the workshop of the sculptors and brothers Johann David and Johann Lorentz Wilhelm Räntz.
The New Chambers stand west of Sanssouci Palace, mirrored by the Picture Gallery to the east; both flank the summer palace, separated from it by tree rows and ramps. The last window bay on the north side was converted into a staircase leading up to the Sanssouci plateau. The building opened as a museum in 1924 and was closed for restoration from 1963 to 1987.
The attic sculpture above the central bay shows Kronos peering over a coat of arms, beside a globe wrapped in a band of Masonic and alchemical symbols, a nod to Frederick the Great's lodge Zu den drei Weltkugeln. Below, putti raise an orange tree, recalling the building's first use as an orangery.
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