Carl Gotthard Langhans

Carl Gotthard Langhans (1732–1808) was a Prussian architect and a pioneer of Neoclassicism in Germany. Born in Landeshut, Silesia, he studied law at Halle before teaching himself architecture from Vitruvius and Winckelmann. He rebuilt Hatzfeld Palace between 1766 and 1774; the count also introduced him to the Berlin court, and from 1775 he headed Silesia's Prussian building authority.

In 1788 Frederick William II named him first director of the royal building commission in Berlin and charged him with the Brandenburg Gate, modelled on Athens's Propylaea and crowned by Schadow's quadriga. He died near Breslau in 1808.