. .

The dairy is to be transformed into a museum in accordance with step 2. The monument itself is the central part of the exhibit, presenting the first major work of Carl Friedrich Schinkel. As the central part of the former manor farm it exhibits the partially fragmented ensemble in its delivered state.

The exhibition includes a scale model of what the building may have looked like after completion in 1803. While this hypothetical reconstruction or interpolation is permissible upon the reduced scale of the model, the building itself permits only minor adaptation of details which allow it to be perceived as the great architectural work it is.

The Museum’s exhibit begins in the room formerly used for storage and maturing of cheese in the southern component of the building which details the history of the Oderbruch (the draining of which began in 1747), the agricultural conditions preceding and determining the construction of the manor farm, the decentralisation of manorial agriculture as the last step of intensification before the introduction of chemical fertilisation, the soil conditions and particularities of the Oderbruch, the impact of plans by the ambitious von Prittwitz landowners, the production of dairy products for sale in Berlin, and finally the changes and alterations which the site has experienced over the last two centuries.

The architectural type ornamented farm, which Schinkel invented as a young professional, is placed in context of art history, and compared to possible sources of inspiration i.e. models.

The second section of the exhibition, situated in the salon on the first floor, examines the dual nature of the building as both a working dairy, as well as a folly-like artefact in a landscape garden. Furthermore, connections to Schinkel’s other architectural work from the period of his working with David and Freidrich Gilly (Schloß Buckow, Steinmeyer House in Berlin, Schloß Köstritz, etc.) are explored. The dairy is explained from within these architectural and material connections. The influences of his teachers (rationalist and technical from one, artistic from the other) upon a young and ambitious Schinkel in pre-Napoleonic Prussia are also examined.

In short, the exhibition presents the significance of this first major project of Schinkel’s in context of his entire architectural work as well as European architectural history around 1800.

An exhibition catalogue was published in time with the opening of the temporary exhibition in 2006. With the opening of the future museum a revised edition, as well as a short handbook are planned.

Opening hours of the museum will be determined in accordance with public interest.

Plan ground floor
Plan ground floor 1:200
Plan first floor
Plan first floor 1:200
Foto vom Modell
Photograph of the model, exhibition of Schinkel's early work in the former salon on the first floor.
Abbildung Entwurf von Schinkel 1802-1803
Entwurf zu einem Schloss in Köstritz, von C. F. Schinkel, 1802-1803