Gotische Bibliothek, Library building in New Garden Potsdam, Germany
The Gothic Library is an octagonal sandstone tower with arcades, a gilded spire, and an external spiral staircase in the New Garden. Its compact design displays typical gothic elements and now serves as an architectural monument.
King Friedrich Wilhelm II commissioned architect Carl Gotthard Langhans to build it between 1792 and 1794 as part of his garden plan. The structure emerged during a period when gothic design was experiencing a revival.
The collection once displayed French literature on the ground floor and German classics upstairs, reflecting the literary tastes of that era. Today, the building's design still reveals how architecture shaped the intellectual interests of the time.
The upper floor remains closed to visitors, but you can view the ground floor through the windows and explore the exterior structure. The external spiral staircase offers different viewing angles of the building from all sides.
A bomb that fell into the Heiliger See during World War II undermined the shore, and the building slid toward the water; the sloping foundation edge is still visible today. After the war it decayed to a ruin and was long called the "Leaning Tower of Potsdam". Berlin gave 1.6 million D-Mark for Potsdam's 1000th birthday in 1993, and from 1995 to 1997 the foundation was secured and the library rebuilt from its original parts.
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