Karl Philipp Christian von Gontard

German architect. He studied under J.-F. Blondel in Paris, and travelled in Italy (1754–5) with the Margrave and Margravine of Bayreuth. In 1763 he was called to Potsdam by the Margravine's brother, King Frederick the Great of Prussia (reigned 1740–86), and became Director of the Building Office with responsibility for all Royal buildings. He built the Communs in front of the Neues Palais (New Palace) to designs by Le Geay, as well as the Temples of Friendship and Antiquity (1768–70) in the Sanssouci Park. With G. C. Unger he designed the handsome Brandenburg Gate, Potsdam (1770), a Frenchified version of the triumphal arch reminiscent of the works of Perrault. His most important contributions to the urban fabric of Berlin were the tall cupolas he added to the French Protestant Church (by Jean-Louis Cayart (1645–1702) of 1701–5) and the New Church (by Giovanni Simonetti (1652–1716) to designs by Martin Grünberg (1655–1707) of 1701–8) in the Gendarmenmarkt, while his works at the Marmorpalais (Marble Palace), Potsdam, and Berlin Schloss (both 1786–9) were influenced by English Neo-Classicism.

Bibliography

• Borrmann (1893)
• Gersberg (1986)
• E. Hempel (1965)
• Watkin and Mellinghoff (1987)
• Zieler (1913)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)