Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff

Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff (1699–1753) was a Prussian officer turned architect and the favourite builder of Frederick the Great. He left the army as a captain in 1729, trained as a painter, and from 1732 advised Crown Prince Frederick on art and architecture, enlarging Rheinsberg Palace and helping to shape the Frederician Rococo style.

In 1740, after Frederick took the Prussian throne, he travelled to Paris and Italy to study architecture. He designed the Berlin Opera House and the palace of Sanssouci at Potsdam, begun in 1745. Dismissed in 1746, he died in Berlin in 1753.