Zwinger



Description

The world-famous Zwinger is one of the most grandiose works of Baroque architecture in Germany. With its pavilions and galleries, the “Crown Gate,” the “Nymph’s Bath” and the courtyard garden, it is an oasis for every visitor to Dresden. Its somewhat daunting name, which means “dungeon” in English, has its origins in fortress architecture and indicates the building’s initial location inside the city walls. But already by the days of August the Strong, the Zwinger had taken on an entirely new function. Its courtyard contained a garden and an orangery and served as a setting for court festivities. And even back then, its buildings accommodated the electoral art collections and the library. Boasting galleries lined with balustrades, figures and vases, the Zwinger is to be considered a Baroque synthesis of the arts, inseparably merging architecture and sculpture. Colour originally played a major role in the buildings’ appearance as well. Whitewashed sandstone, blue-painted roofs and gilt crowns contributed to the fairy-tale character of the architecture. In addition to the architects Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann and the sculptor Balthasar Permoser, Gottfried Semper also contributed to the development of the Zwinger complex. In the mid nineteenth century, he designed the gallery building that served to close the complex on the side facing the Elbe. The Zwinger and the Semper Building now house the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, the Porzellansammlung, the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon, the Rüstkammer and for the Interim Presentation the Skulpturensammlung and the Galerie Neue Meister (from July 8 on).







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