Carl Gotthard Langhans

Carl Gotthard Langhans (1732 to 1808) was a Prussian master builder and royal architect whose churches, palaces, houses, interiors, city gates and theatres in Silesia, Berlin and Potsdam are among the earliest examples of Neoclassical architecture in Germany. Born in Landeshut in Silesia, now Kamienna Gora in Poland, he was not trained as an architect: he studied law at Halle from 1753 to 1757, then mathematics and languages, and taught himself architecture, concentrating on the texts of Vitruvius. His design for the Protestant church in Gross-Glogau of 1764 brought his first recognition. He headed the building authority of Silesia from 1775 to 1788, then became first director of the royal building commission in Berlin, where he designed the Brandenburg Gate, built from 1788 to 1791 on the model of the Propylaea in Athens. It remains his best-known work and a national symbol of Germany.