Die Architektur der Sternwarte auf Gut Bothkamp von 1869

Abstract

Probably ›always‹ were people interested in the sky and watched the stars. The continuous progress of telescopes not only led to ever-changing uses of the stars, but also the instrument’s susceptibility to damage and bad pictures. Therefore, massive and useful locations were needed. In 1869 the Chamberlain Friedrich Gustav von Bülow – who wasn’t an astronomer himself – built on his estate’s edge in Bothkamp, Northern Germany, a private observatory, surrounded by water and open sky on a filled headland. Not only the location or it housing Europe’s biggest telescope were kind of unusual, but the observatory’s appearance and architecture. It was a rotunda with a hollow column in the middle on which the telescope stood, surrounded by eight rooms same size. The building had a gothic looking entrance, a walkable terrace with balustrade on the ground floor and a rotatable cone-type roof on the upper floor, which could be opened by an elongated flap. Bothkamp was one of just a few private observatories, which generally had little architectural design. Since it lacked the typical dome or at least a tower, it looked different anyway. Although Northern Germany had become Prussian at the time of building, the observatory’s appearance doesn’t correspond to the Berlin School at all. Additionally, there was the uncommon use as a multi-purpose building and the representative interior design. Since the astronomical research in Bothkamp ended with World War I and the building was pulled down in the 1930s, the article presents the observatory based on old views and reconstructions and classifies it within contemporary observatories and other buildings.