Tours · Potsdam · Garden Ensemble
Roman Baths (Roemische Baeder) & Charlottenhof
A dreamy slice of Italy on a Prussian pond: Schinkel and Persius turned a crown prince's sketches into a cluster of villas, pergolas and a Roman bath that was never once used for bathing. Charlottenhof Palace, his summer villa, lies just a short stroll away.
About this place
In the southern, most romantic corner of Park Sanssouci, Crown Prince Frederick William, the future King Frederick William IV, indulged his lifelong love of Italy. Between 1826 and 1829 Karl Friedrich Schinkel remodelled an old manor house into Charlottenhof Palace, a Roman villa in miniature that the prince nicknamed 'Siam', the land of the free. From 1829 to 1840 Schinkel and his pupil Ludwig Persius then built the Roman Baths beside the Machine Pond: a tower villa for the court gardener, a tea pavilion shaped like a podium temple, an assistant's house, vine covered pergolas, an arcade hall and finally the bath itself, with atrium, impluvium, caldarium and viridarium modelled on the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum. Peter Joseph Lenné wove it all into a landscape of meadows, water and winding paths. The whole ensemble was a stage set for the prince's imagination: nobody ever took a bath here.
Key facts
- 11 years — The Roman Baths grew piece by piece from 1829 to 1840, each building in a different Italian style
- 1826 year — Schinkel began turning an old manor house into Charlottenhof Palace for the crown prince couple
- 0 baths — Despite its name and its green jasper tub, the Roman Bath was never used for bathing
📍 Lennéstraße, 14471, Potsdam