Zwinger

Why go

The Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD) say Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann laid out the Zwinger for August the Strong between 1711 and 1728, between the inner and outer fortress walls, with three pavilions, curved galleries and the Nymphs' Bath around gardens and ponds. The SKD's page says the Semperbau on the Elbe side, begun by Gottfried Semper in 1855, houses the Old Masters Picture Gallery and the Sculpture Collection up to 1800, and that the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon and the Porcelain Collection can also be visited in the Zwinger. Its 'Ticket Zwinger' covers those four collections but not special exhibitions, and can be booked online. The complex itself is presented by Schlösserland Sachsen, whose Zwinger page gives opening times for the inner courtyard and outer gallery separately from the museums. The SKD says the Zwinger burned down in the May Uprising of 1849 and was rebuilt, and that after heavy damage in the bombing of February 1945 it 'could only be restored in 1963'. This record is the complex; the Old Masters Picture Gallery is a separate record.