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1709
It was built as an orangery and a festival ground for Augustus the Strong
The Zwinger was built in 1709 as an orangery and garden as well as a representative festival area. It was designed by Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann. Its richly decorated pavilions and galleries testify to the splendour of the reign of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and elected King of Poland.
The name
The name is a medieval word for the space between two walls
The name Zwinger goes back to the Middle Ages, when it meant a part of a fortress between the outer and inner walls, even though the Zwinger no longer had a function matching its name at the start of construction. The plan was that it would be the forecourt of a new castle, but that plan was abandoned.
Semper
A century later Gottfried Semper closed the open side
In the original concept of the elector, the Zwinger was the forecourt of a new castle, so it stayed open on the Elbe side. It was only over a century later that the architect Gottfried Semper completed it with the Semper Gallery, which opened in 1855.
The crown
The crown gate is shaped like the crown of Poland
The Kronentor, the crown gate, was finished in 1714 as an addition to the Zwinger. It is built in dark wood and gold in the shape of the Polish crown, further cementing Augustus the Strong's claim on the Polish throne. It was damaged in 1945 and rebuilt to its original form.
Museums
After the 1945 bombing, the Zwinger became a museum complex
The bombing of Dresden on February 13 and 14, 1945 hit the Zwinger extensively and led to great destruction. Since the reconstruction in the 1950s and 1960s, the Old Masters Picture Gallery, the Dresden Porcelain Collection and the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon have been open to the public.
Day 1, midday
It comes after Fürstenzug. Then Semperoper.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Zwinger (Dresden), and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.