Editing Neuruppin (section)

=== City fire and reconstruction (1787-1803) ===

A break in the development of the town was the wildfire of Sunday, August 26, 1787. The fire broke out in a barn filled with grain at the Bechliner Tor in the afternoon and spread rapidly. Only two narrow areas on the eastern and western edges of the city remained. A total of 401 bourgeois houses, 159 outbuildings and outhouses, 228 stables and 38 barns, the parish church of St. Mary, the town hall, the Reformed church, and the Prince's Palace were destroyed.<ref name="zadow">{{citation|surname1=Mario Alexander Zadow|title=Karl Friedrich Schinkel – Ein Sohn der Spätaufklärung|publisher=Edition Axel Menges|publication-place=Stuttgart/London|isbn=3-932565-23-1|date=2001|language=German
}}</ref> Property damage was estimated at nearly 600,000 [[Reichstaler#History|talers]]. The [[Fire Fund]] replaced about 220,000 thalers, a special church collection yielded 60,000 thalers, and the [[Prussia|Prussian]] Government provided 130,000 thalers of funding for the reconstruction of the city. In total, the state spent over one million thalers in the following years.

[[File:Neuruppin 1789.jpg|thumb|left|Plan of the city of Neuruppin, 1789]]

The city planning director [[Bernhard Matthias Brasch]] (1741-1821), who had been active in the city since 1783, implemented the specifications of the reconstruction commission and supervised the corresponding works. These took place from 1788 to 1803, following a uniformly planned ground plan.<ref>Ulrich Reinisch: ''The Reconstruction of the City of Neuruppin after the Great Fire of 1787 or: how the Prussian bureaucracy built a city. Reconstructed and explained according to the files'' = Forschungen und Beiträge zur Denkmalpflege im Land Brandenburg 3. [[Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft]], Worms 2001. ISBN 978-3-88462-173-8</ref> Brasch's plan envisaged the expansion of the city from 46 to almost 61 [[hectares]] with the removal of the ramparts between the Tempelgarten and the lake. The two north–south streets, which were close together, were united into one axis, later Karl-Marx-Strasse. A rectangular network of streets with continuous two-story [[eaves|troughs]][[house]]s was created. Long wide streets interrupted by stately [[square (town planning)|plazas]], and houses in a transformation architecture mixing Baroque, Mannerist and Gothic design elements with Neoclassical trends,<ref>{{citation|surname1=Ulrich Reinisch|title=Der Wiederaufbau der Stadt Neuruppin nach dem grossen Brand 1787 oder wie die preussische Bürokratie eine Stadt baute|publication-place=Berlin|at=pp.&nbsp;190-199|isbn=3-88462-173-4|date=2001|language=German
}}</ref><ref>{{citation|surname1=Brigitte Meier|title=Fontanestadt Neuruppin: Kulturgeschichte einer märkischen Mittelstadt|publisher=Edition Rieger|publication-place=Karwe|at=p.&nbsp;131|isbn=978-3-935231-59-6|date=2004|language=German
}}</ref> have shaped the townscape since that time. These urban reform principles are well recognizable. Thus, with the reconstruction, a classicist city layout unique in this originality was created. The reconstruction was already completed in 1803. Only the completion of the parish church of St. Mary (built 1801-1806 by [[Philipp Bernard François Berson]] with the collaboration of [[Carl Ludwig Engel]]) dragged on until 1806 due to structural problems.

After the disastrous fire in 1787, the neo-classicism of the rebuilt town's buildings have characterised its townscape to the present day. It remained a garrison town until the late 20th century, since Soviet troops were stationed here until 1993; during this time, there were as many Soviet soldiers as inhabitants in Neuruppin.