The palace was designed and built by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff between 1745 and 1747 to meet Frederick's need for a private residence where he could escape the pomp and ceremony of the royal court.

The location and layout of Sanssouci above a vineyard reflected the pre-Romantic ideal of harmony between man and nature, in a landscape ordered by human touch.

[3] With its extensive views of the countryside in the midst of nature, Frederick wanted to reside there sans souci ("without a care") and to follow his personal and artistic interests.

Frederick appears to have accepted no suggestions for alteration to his plans, refusing Knobelsdorff's idea that the palace should have a semi-basement storey, which would not only have provided service areas closer at hand, but would have put the principal rooms on a raised piano nobile.

The principal rooms, lit by tall slender windows, face south over the vineyard gardens; the north façade is the entrance front, where a semicircular cour d'honneur was created by two segmented Corinthian colonnades.

The potential monotony of the façade is broken by a central bow, its dome rising above the hipped roof, with the name of the palace—remarkably, written with a comma and a full stop, viz.

The secondary side wings on the garden front are screened by two symmetrical rows of trees each terminating in free-standing trellised gazebos, richly decorated with gilded ornaments.

Executed in sandstone, these figures of both sexes represent Bacchants, the companions of the wine god Bacchus, and originate from the workshop of the sculptor Friedrich Christian Glume.

Flanking the corps de logis are two secondary wings, providing the large service accommodation and domestic offices necessary to serve an 18th-century monarch, even when in retreat from the world.

[citation needed] Frederick William IV, a draftsman interested in both architecture and landscape gardening, transformed the palace from the retreat of his reclusive great uncle into a fully functioning and fashionable country house.

The palace expresses contemporary French architectural theory in its apartement double ideals of courtly comfort, comprising two rows of rooms, one behind the other.

The strict classical elegance was relieved by a painted ceiling executed by the Swedish-born painter Johann Harper, depicting the goddess Flora with her acolytes, throwing flowers down from the sky.

It is decorated with paintings by French 18th-century artists, including Jean-Baptiste Pater, Jean François de Troy, Pierre-Jacques Cazes, Louis Silvestre, and Antoine Watteau.

However, here, as in the majority of the rooms, the carved putti, flowers and books on the overdoor reliefs were the work of Glume, and the ceiling paintings emphasise the rococo spirit of the palace.

The bookcases contained approximately 2,100 volumes of Greek and Roman writings and historiographies and also a collection of French literature of the 17th and 18th centuries with a heavy emphasis on the works of Voltaire.

Five windows alternating with pier glasses on the outer wall reflect the paintings by Nicolas Lancret, Jean-Baptiste Pater and Antoine Watteau hung between the niches opposite.

The panoramic vista of the garden of Sanssouci is the result of Frederick the Great's decision to create a terraced vineyard on the south slope of the hills of Bornstedt.

This again was a feature copied from Versailles: figures of Venus, Mercury, Apollo, Diana, Juno, Jupiter, Mars and Minerva, as well as allegorical portrayals of the four elements Fire, Water, Air and Earth.

Venus and Mercury, the works of the sculptor Jean Baptiste Pigalle, and two groups of hunters, allegories of the elements (wind and water) by Lambert Sigisbert Adam, were presented by Versailles's owner, the French King Louis XV.

In his plans for the grounds, Frederick attached great importance on the combination of both an ornamental and a practical garden, thus demonstrating his belief that art and nature should be united.

[17] A straight main avenue was laid out, ultimately 2.5 km long, beginning in the east at the 1748 obelisk and extended over the years to the New Palace, which marks its western end.

Continuing the horticultural theme of the terraced gardens, 3,000 fruit trees were planted in the park, and greenhouses and nurseries laid out, producing oranges, melons, peaches and bananas.

[18] From around 1842, the Prussian Royal family were finally able to marvel at such features as the Great Fountain below the vineyard terraces, shooting jets of water to a height of 38 metres.

The architects Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Ludwig Persius built Charlottenhof Palace in the park on the site of a former farm house, and Peter Joseph Lenné was commissioned with the garden design.

[19] Broad meadows created visual avenues between Charlottenhof, the Roman Baths and the New Palace, and incorporated the follies such as the Temple of Friendship of Frederick the Great.

[20] When air raids on Berlin began in the Second World War, the most notable works of art of the former imperial palaces were transferred for safety to Rheinsberg (Brandenburg) and Bernterode (near Worbis, Thuringia).

The structure of the palace remained unscathed despite fierce fighting in the vicinity in 1945, but the ancient windmill, retained in the park by Frederick to add rustic charm, was destroyed.

The artistic pieces from Bernterode found by American soldiers were first shipped to Wiesbaden to the "Central Art Collecting Point" and in 1957 went to Charlottenburg palace in West Berlin.

This was achieved in 1990 with the following citation: The palace and park of Sanssouci, often described as the "Prussian Versailles", are a synthesis of the artistic movements of the 18th century in the cities and courts of Europe.

[6]In 1991, following German reunification, Frederick's casket was interred in the terrace of the vineyard of Sanssouci – in the still existing crypt he had built there – after dark, without pomp, in accordance with his will.