Old City Hall - Potsdam, Germany
N 52° 23.750 E 013° 03.717
33U E 368134 N 5806832
former jail and old city hall in Brandenburg's capital
Waymark Code: WM2KVX
Location: Brandenburg, Germany
Date Posted: 11/18/2007
Views: 125
Between 1745 and 1755, Prussian King
Frederick the Great ordered a complete reconstruction of Potsdam's market square. Reconstruction mainly affected the Potsdam
City Castle but also the construction of three baroque buildings which were finished in 1755 by architect
Johann Boumann.
Ironically, the first function of the most representative of the buildings was to serve as city jail for 120 years. Starting in 1875, the city council used the building for meetings and from 1885 until 1916 it was used as the official Potsdam town hall, with the jail still occupying parts of the building.
1779 |
2007
|
Soon, the building became too small and parts of the administration moved to a new City Hall in 1916. But officially, the old town hall remained the seat of the city administration until the end of World War II, when the building was heavily damaged by Soviet artillery fire.
After the war, the building was one of the first to be reconstructed and put to new use and since 1966 it has been used as Potsdam's community center.