Charlottenburg's French Garden

Historical Summary Elector Friedrich III of Brandenburg, later Friedrich I of Prussia, owned a large number of castles and country-houses and did not stint himself in new acquisitions. But he had almost always to make compromises in his ambitious building plans with the given situation of the site. So when in 1694 he decided to build an entirely new summer residence at Lützenburg, about a mile from Berlin, for his brilliant and well-educated wife, Sophie Charlotte von Braunschweig-Lüneburg, a unique opportunity offered itself for the unhampered development of baroque ideas.