Schinkel trained under Friedrich Gilly in Berlin from 1798 and began his career as a painter and stage designer, touring Italy in 1803–1805 before Prussia's defeat by Napoleon left little architectural work to be had. Appointed to the Prussian Building Commission in 1810 through Wilhelm von Humboldt's mediation, he became Geheimer Oberbaurat in 1815 and rose in 1830 to head the state's entire building administration, reaching the rank of Oberlandesbaudirektor in 1838. His practice ran two vocabularies at once: a Greek Doric and Ionic neoclassicism for the Neue Wache and the Altes Museum, and an English-influenced Gothic brick manner for the Friedrichswerder Church and the Bauakademie. He also designed stage sets, furniture and medals, and shaped Prussian public building for a generation of successors. He died in Berlin in 1841 after a stroke.
