Carl von Gontard

Carl Philipp Christian von Gontard (January 13, 1731 in Mannheim – September 23, 1791 in Breslau) was a German architect who worked primarily in Berlin, Potsdam, and Bayreuth in the style of late Baroque Classicism. Next to Knobelsdorff he was considered the most important architect of the era of Frederick the Great of Prussia.

Carl von Gontard descended from a Huguenot family living in the French province of Dauphiné. He married Sophia von Erckert and had numerous children, including Carl Friedrich Ludwig von Gontard, a Prussian army officer who was granted hereditary nobility by the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II.

After two years of study in Paris under Jacques-François Blondel and a lengthy sojourn in Italy he gained a reputation as a valued court architect to Wilhelmine of Prussia, Margravine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth. In Bayreuth he designed an extension to the Bayreuth Palace and numerous palaces for the nobility and residences for prosperous citizens, buildings recognized as being of high artistic quality and giving the townscape a distinctive accent. Gontard also taught architecture at the Bayreuth Academy of Arts. When her husband, reigning prince Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, died in 1763, Gontard no long received regular commissions because of the policy of austerity of Frederick’s successor, Frederick Christian, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth.