Anyone seeing the New Palace in Potsdam’s Sanssouci Palace complex for the first time can hardly believe that the impressive structure was “only” a guest palace. But it was precisely for this purpose that Frederick II had the palace built from 1763 to 1769 according to plans by Johann Gottfried Büring, Heinrich Ludwig Manger and Carl von Gontard at the western end of the main avenue in Sanssouci Park. The monarch himself never lived in the more than 200 palace rooms. Today, about 60 of the magnificent rooms can be visited, such as the marble gallery, the grotto hall or the guest apartments. The palace theater in the south wing of the New Palace regularly hosts cultural events.
