Frederick II commissioned the Chinese House in 1755, then promptly went to war. The Seven Years’ War stretched the build to almost a decade and left Prussia’s finances in a sorry state. Yet the moment peace arrived, he found the money to finish a garden ornament.

The result is a cloverleaf-shaped pavilion in Sanssouci Park, its columns and statues covered in gold leaf. Look closely at the figures (boxed up each winter) and you’ll notice they don’t look especially Chinese. Most Europeans of the day had never met an Asian person, and it shows. Frederick held small parties here, but mostly it was there to be admired.

VoiceMap’s Sanssouci Park audio tour opens at an obelisk carved with nonsense hieroglyphics, then stops here, using both to show how eighteenth-century rulers competed to build extravagant copies of cultures they had never visited.