Muschelgrotte

The Muschelgrotte stands in Potsdam’s Neuer Garten as an architectural grotto designed to resemble natural rock. Friedrich Wilhelm II commissioned the structure, which Andreas Ludwig Krüger and Friedrich Ludwig Carl Krüger built between 1791 and 1794. Its rough exterior combines bog iron stone from Golzow, calcareous tuff, gypsum, slag and sintered brick. The builders called the fused brick material Schmolz. Inside, three rooms contain decoration made from coloured mica, green serpentine, glass flux, shells and snails. A central hall has an oval open dome with birds, reeds and an eagle carrying a ribbon. French doors once opened the decorated walls towards the Jungfernsee. The grotto provided a hidden retreat for tea parties and meals, supported by a small kitchen nearby. A circular wooden Borkenküche stood southwest of the grotto beneath a reed roof with an owl-topped chimney. The rebuilt kitchen dates from 2010 to 2012. The Berlin Wall’s border strip later contributed to the grotto’s decline, while restoration began in 2004. Surviving decorations reveal the intended richness of this independent grotto architecture.