About this place
The Chinese House is the most exuberant ornament of Sanssouci Park, a garden pavilion built between 1755 and 1764 by Johann Gottfried Büring after sketches by Frederick the Great. Its clover leaf plan, a round central hall with three curved wings, is wrapped in gilded sandstone palm columns and life sized gilded figures of Chinese tea drinkers and musicians carved by Johann Peter Benckert and Johann Gottlieb Heymüller, while a tent shaped copper roof rises to a golden mandarin beneath a parasol. Created at the height of the European fashion for chinoiserie, it shows China as the Rococo imagined it rather than as it was, and the sculptors, who had never seen an East Asian face, modelled the figures on Potsdam locals in fancy dress. Frederick used the pavilion for summer tea parties and to display his porcelain collection. Restored several times, most recently in the 1990s, it is today one of the most photographed sights in Potsdam and part of the UNESCO World Heritage ensemble.
Key facts
- 1764 year — Pavilion completed after nine years of building to Frederick's own sketches
- 3 wings — Curved wings around a round hall give the building its clover leaf plan
- 1990 year — Inscribed with the Sanssouci ensemble as a UNESCO World Heritage Site
📍 Am Grünen Gitter 11, 14469, Potsdam