Monopteros
Monopteros stands in Potsdam’s Ruinenberg as a round temple with Tuscan columns and no roof. Trees, a ruin wall shaped like an ancient theatre, and a Norman tower frame the setting. The nearly 23-metre-high tower draws on the form of a medieval watchtower.
Ruinenberg took shape in the mid-eighteenth century under Frederick the Great. A water basin supplied the fountains of Sanssouci Park, while gigantic columns, a Doric rotunda, and a pyramid reflected across its surface. Peter Joseph Lenné later incorporated the hill and Bornstedt estate fields into Sanssouci Park.
The temple was reconstructed entirely in natural stone, following historical models. Craftspeople shaped approximately 150 cubic metres of masonry and sculpture before assembling the pieces with a tower crane. Hidden conical joints inside the architraves let the stones support themselves.
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- Potsdam
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The myTuur app is free, and once you are standing at a spot its story starts by itself.
Spots like this one are the stops myTuur strings into tours through Potsdam. In the app, each story begins where you stand: walk up to a spot and it starts, read it on screen or listen as you go, then follow the route to the next one.
What is myTuur?
myTuur is a free city-guide app. Its tours are built from spots, and each spot carries a story that starts when you get there, to read or to listen to as you like.