Peter Joseph Krahe (*8 April 1758, †7 October 1840), head of construction in the Duchy of Brunswick, designed this portico (pillared porch) in 1805/06 for the conversion of the Augusttor building, built in 1730, into the Hauptwache (artillery barracks since 1832). He designed the new façade facing Torstraße in the Doric style with six fluted columns and a triangular gable. The architectural sculpture on the wall panels - ornamented round shields in front of bundles of rods and axes - refers to the armory set up here.
After the barracks were demolished in 1895, the portico was rebuilt in 1896 with a staircase in the Bürgerpark. Here, on a small hill north of where the Oker flows into the two flood ditches, the portico, deliberately designed in the form of a ruin, forms an attractive, picturesque viewpoint. The extensive park was created in 1886 in the Oker lowlands according to plans submitted in 1868 by the garden architect Friedrich Kreiss (ducal promenade inspector since 1884) - equipped with ponds, playgrounds and staffage buildings in the taste of the time.
During the Second World War, the portico was badly damaged and partially lost. The remains were secured in 1989 and still convey an impressive picture and at the same time a chapter in Braunschweig's military and urban history