Belvedere on the Pfingstberg hill

The construction of a belvedere (Italian for beautiful outlook) on Pfingstberg, which at that time bore the name Jewish Hill (Judenberg), was contemplated as early as 1793 by King Frederick William II of Prussia, who commissioned architect M.P.Boumann to design a neo-Gothic tower with a hall. However, his project was not realized. Initially, a small romantic gazebo dedicated to the Roman goddess of fruit Pomona was created on the hill above Potsdam according to designs by F.D.Gilly and K.F.Schinkel. In 1817, the vineyard was purchased (and renamed to today's Pfingstberg) by King Frederick William III, whose successor began, after Schinkel's death, to construct a significantly larger belvedere against the backdrop of the Pomona gazebo, designed by Schinkel's students from the Berlin Building Academy Ludwig Persius and Friedrich Stüler. The artistically gifted King Frederick William IV was a co-author of the first sketches of the belvedere. He was inspired by Renaissance palaces (especially the Villa Farnese in Caprarola, north of Rome), which the king visited during his first trip to Italy at the age of 33.
In the first phase, a structure was built on a square plan featuring opposing staircases, side colonnades, and topped with a pair of 25-meter-high towers. The interior courtyard was dominated by a square water feature, where water was pumped from a dairy farm, serving as a reservoir for further planned cascades and water elements in the lower-lying New Garden (Neuer Garten). The rooms in the towers were designed in an ancient (Roman room in the western tower) and exotic (Moorish room in the eastern tower) style. For financial reasons, construction work was interrupted from 1852 to 1860 (to allow for the construction of the New Orangery in Sanssouci Park according to the designs of Hesse and Stüler from 1851 to 1864). Frederick William IV did not live to see the completion of the project on Pfingstberg. He died in 1858, and subsequently, only fragments (the entrance hall with two projecting wings to the belvedere) of the original ambitious plan were realized, captured in a watercolor by architect Ferdinand von Arnim in 1856.
Initially, Schinkel's pavilion was also to be demolished to be replaced by hanging gardens, wide staircases, and water cascades before the belvedere. His successor William I of Prussia significantly reduced these ambitious plans and commissioned the famous landscape architect Peter Joseph Lenné to complete them, who harmoniously integrated Schinkel's gazebo into his landscape project and connected it to the disproportionately larger Belvedere through a semicircular living arbor, thereby compensating for the asymmetric placement of both structures.
During World War II, the historic center of Potsdam was severely damaged, but the belvedere on the strategically significant Pfingstberg hill survived relatively unscathed. It fell into disrepair even more when it became part of a closed Soviet military area. Access was prohibited for decades, as the towers provided a good view of West Berlin. It was not until the late 1980s that the park was reopened to the public, and the belvedere was restored only after the reunification of Germany. Today, the belvedere is part of the gardens and palace complex in Potsdam listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.