Roter Turm

The Rote Turm stands beside the end of the Orangerie wing called the Neues Haus in Belvedere, a short drive east of Weimar in Thüringen. This small pavilion sits on a circular base under a cone-shaped roof and takes its name from the red bricks and paint used on the exterior. Inside, the floor is laid with parquet, and the ceiling is painted to look like a cloudy sky. A short connecting passage links the tower to the Neues Haus, which Carl Friedrich Christian Steiner designed in 1808. The tower began life in the vanished English Garden near the Wittumspalais in Weimar. Johann Friedrich Lossius’s 1785 town plan shows it there. Between 1818 and 1822 Goethe supervised its dismantling and rebuilding in Belvedere. Adam Friedrich Oeser decorated the interior with six chinoiserie frescoes that create the illusion of Chinese landscapes and figures. The space was later used by Grand Duke Carl August and guests for botanical study and housed a small library including the Hortus Belvedereanus. Visitors step into a circular room where the walls carry copies of Oeser’s original frescoes. The copies were made by Johann Joseph Schmeller in 1821 using earlier watercolours by Johann Sebastian Carl Brandt as guides. The ceiling’s painted sky and the red brickwork give the chamber a calm, scholarly atmosphere. Outside, the pavilion sits within the Belvedere grounds, surrounded by lawns and mature trees.