Frederick the Great was many things: a military commander, a flute player, a philosopher-king. He was also, it turns out, a theatrical director.

The north face of Sanssouci Palace is where guests arrived by horse-drawn carriage, passing an obelisk carved with hieroglyphics that nobody could read, because Frederick's craftsmen had simply made them up. Authentic Egyptian obelisks hadn't yet reached Europe. Nobody knew what hieroglyphics actually looked like, and this was their best guess.

From the courtyard's 88 Corinthian columns, Frederick had arranged a view. He hired a theatre set designer to compose it. On the hill opposite, ancient-looking ruins appear to be crumbling: a round temple with deliberate damage to its top, ionic columns arranged to look as if one has just fallen, a Norman tower that never housed a single Norman. All of it fake, all of it planned.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tour unpacks this performance, explaining how Frederick used the courtyard to stage first impressions and why an 18th-century Prussian king hired a set designer to do it.