The Schloss Tegel or Humboldt-Schloss is a country house in Tegel, part of the Reinickendorf district of the German capital Berlin. The brothers Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt spent much of their childhood in a former schloss on the site and on the estate, which extends almost as far as Lake Tegel.

The present building was built between 1820 and 1824 by Wilhelm von Humboldt to designs by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. It still belongs to the Heinz family, descendants of Wilhelm. It houses the private Humboldt-Museum, open to guided tours during the summer.

History

Originally built as a Renaissance mansion in 1558, it was converted to a hunting lodge by Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg. As part of the Tegel estate, it passed to the Humboldt family by marriage in 1766 and became their family seat - Alexander and Wilhelm lived there several years. After their mother Marie-Elisabeth von Humboldt's death, Wilhelm took over the estate in 1797 and had the schloss rebuilt in the classical style between 1820 and 1824 by the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Wilhelm's daughter Gabriele later inherited it - she married the Prussian foreign minister Heinrich von Bülow and after her death it passed to their daughter Constanze von Heinz, whose descendants still own it.

The park was originally designed between 1777 and 1789 by Gottlob Johann Christian Kunth, the Humboldts' tutor. From 1802 it was further developed by Wilhelm to designs by Peter Joseph Lenné. The park was listed as a 'Denkmalschutz' (monument treasure) in 1983. On its western side, near Lake Tegel, is the 'Dicke Marie', an oak named after their cook by the Humboldts - it is sometimes dated at 800 years old. There are also 7.8 m deep lakes near the house itself.[3] The park also contains Wilhelm's wife's tomb monument in the park in 1829, on a site chosen by her - it consists of a high granite column topped by a statue of the Roman goddess Spes by Bertel Thorvaldsen, favoured by Caroline and bought by Wilhelm after her death. Wilhelm and Alexander were also buried nearby, as were Caroline and Wilhelm's children and descendants up to the present day, beneath uniformly designed unornamented tombstones and rows of flat grave mounds. The column is framed from behind by a stone bench or exedra, simpler than Schinkel's usual style.

Schloss Tegel

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The Spandau Citadel (German: Zitadelle Spandau) is a fortress in Berlin, Germany, one of the best-preserved Renaissance military structures of Europe. Built from 1559–94 atop a medieval fort on an island created by the meeting of the Havel and the Spree, it was designed to protect the town of Spandau, which is now part of Berlin. In recent years it has been used as a museum and has become a popular tourist spot.

Italian architect Francesco Chiaramella de Gandino started to plan the citadel in 1557 and was replaced by his compatriot Rochus Graf zu Lynar one year later. With four bastions, symmetrically arranged and connected by curtain walls, the Spandau citadel is an ideal example of a 16th-century fortress. Due to the bastions' formation, there is no blind spot for enemies to hide.

In 1580, first troops were assigned to the Spandau Citadel which was completed only in 1594. Swedish troops were the first to besiege the citadel in 1675 and Napoleon was the first to conquer it in 1806. During the French attack it was almost completely destroyed and had to be restored. In 1935, a gas laboratory was installed for military research on nerve gas.

Close to the end of the Second World War, during the battle in Berlin, the citadel became a part of the city's defences. Although several hundred years old, the Citadel's tracé à l'italienne design made the structure difficult to storm. So instead of bombarding and storming the Citadel, the Soviets invested it and set about negotiating a surrender. After negotiations, the citadel's commander surrendered to the Lieutenant-General Perkhorovitch's 47th Army just after 15:00 on 1 May 1945, saving many lives and leaving the ancient infrastructure intact.

After the Second World War, the Spandau Citadel was first occupied by Soviet troops. With the division of Berlin, Spandau and its Citadel was part of the British sector. The citadel was used as a prison for Prussian state prisoners such as German nationalist Friedrich Ludwig Jahn. It was not used as the prison for National Socialist war criminals, who were housed at Spandau prison in the same Berlin borough.

The citadel is composed of different buildings all related to defence or representative housing. The gate house with a draw bridge used to hinder attackers to enter the citadel. The Gothic hall building palace was used as residential building. In the bastion Königin, 70 medieval gravestones were found bearing witness of Jewish life in the important trade town and the function of the citadel as a refuge. Julius tower is Spandau's most famous sight. Originally built as a keep or watchtower, it was also used as a residence tower. Its castellated top was designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in 1838 and is an example of Romantic architecture. After the Franco-Prussian War 1870/71, part of the war reparations paid by France, 120 million marks in gold coin, was stored at Julius tower until its restitution to France in 1919. The word Juliusturm has since been used in Germany for governmental budget surpluses.

From 1950 to 1986, the citadel housed vocational school Otto Bartning. Subsequently, more and more buildings were redesigned for museums and exhibition. Today, Spandau Citadel is famous for its open-air concerts during the Citadel Music Festival.

Scenes from the 1985 action film Gotcha! were filmed at and around Spandau Citadel.

Spandau Citadel

Charlottenburg Palace (German: Schloss Charlottenburg) is the largest palace in Berlin, Germany. It is located in the Charlottenburg district of the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf borough.

The palace was built at the end of the 17th century and was greatly expanded during the 18th century. It includes much exotic internal decoration in baroque and rococo styles. A large formal garden surrounded by woodland was added behind the palace, including a belvedere, a mausoleum, a theatre and a pavilion. During the Second World War, the palace was badly damaged but has since been reconstructed. The palace with its gardens are a major tourist attraction.

The original palace was commissioned by Sophie Charlotte, the wife of Friedrich III, Elector of Brandenburg in what was then the village of Lietzow. Originally named Lietzenburg, the palace was designed by Johann Arnold Nering in baroque style. It consisted of one wing and was built in  2 1⁄2 storeys with a central cupola. The façade was decorated with Corinthian pilasters. On the top was a cornice on which were statues. At the rear in the centre of the palace were two oval halls, the upper one being a ceremonial hall and the lower giving access to the gardens. Nering died during the construction of the palace and the work was completed by Martin Grünberg and Andreas Schlüter. The inauguration of the palace was celebrated on 11 July 1699, Frederick's 42nd birthday.

Friedrich crowned himself as King Friedrich I in Prussia in 1701 (Friedrich II, known as Frederick the Great, would later achieve the title King of Prussia). Two years previously, he had appointed Johann Friedrich von Eosander (also known as Eosander von Göthe) as the royal architect and sent him to study architectural developments in Italy and France, particularly the Palace of Versailles. On his return in 1702, Eosander began to extend the palace, starting with two side wings to enclose a large courtyard, and the main palace was extended on both sides. Sophie Charlotte died in 1705 and Friedrich named the palace and its estate Charlottenburg in her memory. In the following years, the Orangery was built on the west of the palace and the central area was extended with a large domed tower and a larger vestibule. On top of the dome is a wind vane in the form of a gilded statue representing Fortune designed by Andreas Heidt. The Orangery was originally used to overwinter rare plants. During the summer months, when over 500 orange, citrus and sour orange trees decorated the baroque garden, the Orangery regularly was the gorgeous scene of courtly festivities.

Inside the palace, was a room described as "the eighth wonder of the world", the Amber Room (Bernsteinzimmer), a room with its walls surfaced in decorative amber. It was designed by Andreas Schlüter and its construction by the Danish amber craftsman Gottfried Wolfram started in 1701. Friedrich Wilhelm I gave the Amber Room to Tsar Peter the Great as a present in 1716.

When Friedrich I died in 1713, he was succeeded by his son, Friedrich Wilhelm I whose building plans were less ambitious, although he did ensure that the building was properly maintained. Building was resumed after his son Friedrich II (Frederick the Great) came to the throne in 1740. During that year, stables for his personal guard regiment were completed to the south of the Orangery wing and work was started on the east wing. The building of the new wing was supervised by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff, the Superintendent of all the Royal Palaces, who largely followed Eosander's design. The decoration of the exterior was relatively simple but the interior furnishings were lavish. The ground floor was intended for Frederick's wife Elisabeth Christine, who, preferring Schönhausen Palace, was only an occasional visitor. The decoration of the upper floor, which included the White Hall, the Banqueting Hall, the Throne Room and the Golden Gallery, was lavish and was designed mainly by Johann August Nahl. In 1747, a second apartment for the king was prepared in the distant eastern part of the wing. During this time, Sanssouci was being built at Potsdam and once this was completed Frederick was only an occasional visitor to Charlottenburg.

In 1786, Frederick was succeeded by his nephew Friedrich Wilhelm II who transformed five rooms on the ground floor of the east wing into his summer quarters and part of the upper floor into Winter Chambers, although he did not live long enough to use them. His son, Friedrich Wilhelm III came to the throne in 1797 and reigned with his wife, Queen Luise for 43 years. They spent much of this time living in the east wing of Charlottenburg. Their eldest son, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who reigned from 1840 to 1861, lived in the upper storey of the central palace building. After Friedrich Wilhelm IV died, the only other royal resident of the palace was Friedrich III who reigned for 99 days in 1888.

The palace was badly damaged in 1943 during the Second World War. In 1951, the war-damaged Stadtschloss in East Berlin was demolished and, as the damage to Charlottenburg was at least as serious, it was feared that it would also be demolished. However, following the efforts of Margarete Kühn, the Director of the State Palaces and Gardens, it was rebuilt to its former condition, with gigantic modern ceiling paintings by Hann Trier. From 2004 till early 2006, Charlottenburg Palace was the seat of the President of Germany, whilst Schloss Bellevue was being renovated.

The garden was designed in 1697 in baroque style by Simeon Godeau who had been influenced by André Le Nôtre, designer of the gardens at Versailles. Godeau's design consisted of geometric patterns, with avenues and moats, which separated the garden from its natural surroundings. Beyond the formal gardens was the Carp Pond. Towards the end of the 18th century, a less formal, more natural-looking garden design became fashionable. In 1787 the Royal Gardener Georg Steiner redesigned the garden in the English landscape style for Friedrich Wilhelm II, the work being directed by Peter Joseph Lenné. After the Second World War, the centre of the garden was restored to its previous baroque style.

In 1788, Friedrich Wilhelm II arranged for the building of the Belvedere, designed by Carl Gotthard Langhans, in the grounds beyond the Carp Pond. The building was used as a teahouse and as a viewing-tower. Langhans also designed the Palace Theatre, which was built between 1788 and 1791 to the west of the Orangery wing. The Mausoleum was built as a tomb for Queen Luise between 1810 and 1812 in neoclassical style to a design by Heinrich Gentz. After the death of Friedrich Wilhelm III, it was extended; this design being by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. It was extended again in 1890–91 by Albert Geyer to accommodate the graves of Wilhelm I and his wife Augusta. In 1825, Friedrich Wilhelm III added the Neuer Pavilion, an Italianate villa designed by Schinkel, to the north of the palace. This was damaged in the war in 1943 and was reconstructed between 1957 and 1970.

The palace and grounds are a major visitor attraction.

For an admission charge, parts of the interior of the palace are open to visitors, including the Old Palace (Alte Schloss) and the New Wing (Neuer Flügel). The Old Palace contains many rooms with baroque decoration, and includes a room called the Porcelain Cabinet, which holds thousands of porcelain objects. On special display are the crown jewels and the royal silver and fine porcelain tableware. The New Wing includes the opulent rococo State Apartments of Frederick the Great and the more modest Winter Chambers of Friedrich Wilhelm II. The formal and informal gardens are freely open to the public.
For an admission charge, the Mausoleum, the Belvedere and the Neue Pavilion are open to visitors. The Mausoleum contains the graves of, and memorials to, members of the Hohenzollern family. The memorial to Queen Luise includes her reclining effigy, which is made from Carrara marble and was designed by Christian Daniel Rauch.
Also open to the public are the Belvedere, which contains a collection of Berlin porcelain, and the Neue Pavilion, which houses a collection of arts and crafts of the period when Schinkel was active.
The former Palace Theatre is now the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, which is a museum of prehistoric archaeology. The former Orangery houses a restaurant and café.
 Destroyed during World War II, the Great Orangery was reconstructed on the model of the baroque building. Today, it shines in its old brilliance again. The light-flooded festival room provides a pleasant framework for cultural events, concerts and banquets.
In addition, a large equestrian statue of Friedrich Wilhelm I is the focus of the palace courtyard. This was designed by Andreas Schlüter and made between 1696 and 1700. From 1703, it stood on the Langen Brücke (now the Rathausbrücke) but was moved to a place of safety in the Second World War. On its return after the war, the barge carrying it sank and it was not salvaged until 1949. In 1952, it was erected on its present site. Across the street of the palace are two more museums, the Bröhan Museum, which contains art nouveau and art deco articles, and the Berggruen Museum, which houses modern art, in particular works by Picasso and Klee.

Charlottenburg Palace

Schönhausen Palace (German: Schloss Schönhausen) is a Baroque palace at Niederschönhausen, in the borough of Pankow, Berlin, Germany. It is surrounded by gardens through which the Panke river runs. The palace is maintained by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg and reopened to the public in 2009 after extensive restoration.

In 1662 Countess Sophie Theodore, a scion of the Holland-Brederode family and wife of the Brandenburg general Christian Albert of Dohna, acquired the lands Niederschönhausen and Pankow, then far north of the Berlin city gates. In 1664 she built a manor at Niederschönhausen in "Dutch" style. Minister Joachim Ernst von Grumbkow acquired it in 1680 and, in 1691, his widow sold it for 16,000 Thalers to the Hohenzollern elector Frederick III of Brandenburg, who had fallen in love with the property earlier.

Frederick put the manor under the care of the Amt Niederschönhausen and had it remodeled into a palace from 1691–93 based on plans designed by Johann Arnold Nering. In August 1700 the Prince-elector prepared and planned his coronation as King in Prussia at Schönhausen Palace. In 1704 the now King Frederick I in Prussia contracted Eosander von Göthe (de) to again enlarge the palace and its gardens. However after the king's death in 1713, his son and successor Frederick William I did not care much for the place. As a result, civil servants, such as Minister Friedrich Wilhelm von Grumbkow, moved in to use it as office space, part of the land was leased and both the palace and the park slowly became dilapidated in the ensuing years.

Under King Frederick II of Prussia, also known as "Frederick the Great", the palace was once again turned into a royal residence for his wife, Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern, who used it as her regular summer residence from 1740–90. Artist Johann Michael Graff most probably contributed the lavish stucco decorations executed during this time. As Frederick's relations with his wife were strained, he never visited Niederschönhausen and spent his summers at Sanssouci in Potsdam.

During the Seven Years' War in 1760, while the queen retreated to the Magdeburg fortress, Russian troops pushed deep into Prussia, occupied Berlin and devastated Niederschönhausen Palace. After 1763 it was rebuilt in its current form according to plans by Johann Boumann and the gardens were remodeled in a Rococo à la française style.

After the death of Queen Elisabeth Christine in 1797 the palace was seldom used. At times Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, widow of Prince Louis Charles of Prussia, lived at Schönhausen and had the gardens again remodeled, this time by Peter Joseph Lenné into an English landscape garden. Apart from that it served mainly as a storage facility for furniture and paintings.

It was rumored that King Frederick II had his favorite horse Condé buried in the gardens, but whether the hill in question actually is a horse's grave has not been proven. In fact Condé outlived its owner and died in 1804, aged 38. Its skeleton is kept at the veterinary department of the Free University of Berlin.

The Prussian ruling Hohenzollern dynasty owned Schönhausen Palace until it was dispossessed and became a property of the Free State of Prussia in 1920, following the end of the monarchy in the course of the German Revolution of 1918–1919. It was then opened to the public and used for numerous art exhibitions as well as the government's official art department during the Nazi era, when several paintings of banned so-called "degenerate art" were stored here. During the Battle of Berlin at the end of World War II, the palace suffered some damage but was repaired almost immediately by a Pankow Künstlerinitiative so that it could be used for an exhibit as early as September 1945. Soon thereafter the Soviet Military Administration confiscated the palace and turned it into an officer's mess. Later it served as a boarding school for Soviet students.

When the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was established in the Soviet occupation zone on 7 October 1949, the Soviets turned Schönhausen Palace over to the East German authorities. Until 1960 it served as the official seat of the GDR president Wilhelm Pieck, where he received state guests like Nikita Khrushchev and Ho Chi Minh. After his death it served at first as the seat of the newly established East German State Council, which moved to the Staatsratsgebäude (de) at Mitte in 1964. It was then used by the GDR government as its official guest house and officially renamed Schloss Niederschönhausen. Numerous state visitors lodged here, among them Indira Gandhi, Fidel Castro, the last Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, and his wife Raisa Gorbachova, in October 1989 on the eve of the East German Peaceful Revolution. At that time, the palace and part of the gardens were closed to the public and surrounded by a tall wall.

While German reunification was in progress in 1989 and 1990, the so-called Round Table met in the palace's outbuildings. Major portions of the negotiations leading to the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany also took place here, and a plaque now memorializes this period.

After German reunification, the palace became the property of the Bundesvermögensamt, the division of the German treasury in charge of managing government-owned real estate. In 1991 the state of Berlin became the new owner of the palace and its gardens, and in 1997 the state put the property up for sale.

In Schönhausen Palace, 100 years after the revival of the Olympic Games met together in 1994 the representatives from Argentina, Austria, China, Cyprus, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Kazakhstan, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Switzerland, United States, who arrived to the founding congress of the International Delphic Council to establish the Delphic Games of the modern era.

In 2003 there was some discussion about using the palace as the temporary residence of the President of Germany until the renovation of Schloss Bellevue would be completed, but this plan fell through because of the high cost (approximately €12 million) that would have been required to bring the palace sufficiently up to standards. Furthermore, due to impregnation of the roof structure with chemicals to protect the wooden beams, for several years only the two lower floors could be used for occasional celebrations and guided tours.

On June 24, 2005, ownership of the palace was transferred to the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg. At the same time, €8.6 million in federal funds was earmarked for renovation work. The palace was reopened 19 December 2009 to the public. In addition to the historic rooms dating to the time of the Prussian queen, the rooms used by the GDR President was reopened. Refurnishing the office used by Wilhelm Pieck and building a café for museum guests are also being considered. Furthermore, artworks from the collection of Elisabeth Christine are exhibited as are the Dohna-Schlobitten collection, which used to be housed at Charlottenburg Palace.

Restoration of the gardens to their layout when the President of the GDR worked here is also planned. Thought is also being given to the future of the garage, which enjoys protection as a historic landmark.

Since 2003 the Bundesakademie für Sicherheitspolitik (BAKS) has been housed in two of the palace's auxiliary outbuildings.

Schönhausen Palace

Bellevue Palace (German: Schloss Bellevue), located in Berlin's Tiergarten district, has been the official residence of the President of Germany since 1994. It is situated on the banks of the Spree river, near the Berlin Victory Column, along the northern edge of the Großer Tiergarten park. Its name – the French for "beautiful view" – derives from its scenic prospect over the Spree's course.

Designed by architect Michael Philipp Boumann, Schloss Bellevue was erected in 1786 as a summer residence for Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia, Herrenmeister ("Master of the Knights") of the Johanniterorden ("Order of Saint John") and younger brother of King Frederick II of Prussia, on the site of a manor house which Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff had built in 1743. Bellevue was the first Neoclassical building in Germany, characterized by its Corinthian pilasters, with wings on either side ("Ladies' wing" and "(River) Spree wing"). The upper floor holds a ballroom designed by Carl Gotthard Langhans. The Palace is surrounded by a park of about 20 hectares.

In 1843, King Frederick William IV of Prussia acquired Bellevue, which, in 1865, became the residence of his niece Princess Alexandrine after her marriage with William of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. It served the royal and imperial princes of the Hohenzollern dynasty until the German Revolution of 1918–19.

A property of the Free State of Prussia from 1928, the Palace was used as a museum of ethnography during the 1930s before being renovated as a guest house for the Nazi government in 1938. It was there that Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov stayed with his retinue during his visit to Berlin in November 1940. During World War II, the Palace was severely damaged by strategic bombing and in the 1945 Battle of Berlin, before being was substantially refurbished in the 1950s. Inaugurated by President Theodor Heuss in 1959, it served as the secondary residence of the West German president, a pied à terre in West Berlin to supplement his primary residence at the Hammerschmidt Villa in Bonn. It was refurbished again in 1986-87, and, in 1994, after German reunification, President Richard von Weizsäcker made it his primary residence. A modern annex to the southern wing was built in 1998 to house the offices of the affiliated Bundespräsidialamt ("Office of the Federal President"), a federal agency.

Roman Herzog, president from 1994 to 1999, remains the only officeholder who lived at Bellevue while incumbent. The Palace was reconstructed again in 2004 and 2005 to remedy defects in earlier renovations; during this period, President Horst Köhler used nearby Charlottenburg Palace for representative purposes. Bellevue became the president's primary official seat again in January 2006, but since then has not included living quarters. Instead, the Federal President now lives in a government-owned villa in Dahlem, a suburban district of southwestern Berlin.

Contrary to popular belief, the presidential standard is flown at the Palace even on many days when the President is not in Berlin. It is lowered only when the President takes up official residence elsewhere - e.g. on the occasion of a state visit, when the standard is raised over his temporary residence abroad, or when he uses his second residence at Villa Hammerschmidt. If he is just on vacation, Schloss Bellevue remains his official residence and the standard is flown over it.

In 1945, according to testimony reported in the 1995 documentary film On the Desperate Edge of Now, Berlin citizens buried statues of historical military figures from the Großer Tiergarten in the grounds of the Palace to prevent their destruction by the occupying American forces. They were not recovered until 1993.

Bellevue Palace (Germany)

Bellevue Palace , located in Berlin's Tiergarten district, has been the official residence of the President of Germany since 1994. The schloss is situated on the banks of the Spree river, near the Berlin Victory Column, along the northern edge of the Großer Tiergarten park. Its name – the French for "beautiful view" – derives from its scenic prospect over the Spree's course.

Overview

Designed by architect Michael Philipp Boumann, Schloss Bellevue was erected in 1786 as a summer residence for Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia, Herrenmeister ("Master of the Knights") of the Johanniterorden ("Order of Saint John") and younger brother of King Frederick II of Prussia, on the site of a manor house which Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff had built in 1743. Bellevue was the first Neoclassical building in Germany, characterized by its Corinthian pilasters, with wings on either side ("Ladies' wing" and "[River] Spree wing"). The upper floor holds a ballroom designed by Carl Gotthard Langhans. The Palace is surrounded by a park of about 20 hectares.

In 1843, King Frederick William IV of Prussia acquired Bellevue, which, in 1865, became the residence of his niece Princess Alexandrine after her marriage to Duke William of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. It served the royal and imperial princes of the Hohenzollern dynasty until the German Revolution of 1918–19.

A property of the Free State of Prussia from 1928, the Palace was used as a museum of ethnography during the 1930s before being renovated as a guest house for the Nazi government in 1938. It was there that Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov stayed with his retinue during his visit to Berlin in November 1940. During World War II, the Palace was severely damaged by strategic bombing and in the 1945 Battle of Berlin, before being substantially refurbished in the 1950s. Inaugurated by President Theodor Heuss in 1959, it served as the secondary residence of the West German president, a pied à terre in West Berlin to supplement his primary residence at the Hammerschmidt Villa in Bonn. It was refurbished again in 1986–87, and, in 1994, after German reunification, President Richard von Weizsäcker made it his primary residence. A modern annex to the southern wing was built in 1998 to house the offices of the affiliated Bundespräsidialamt ("Office of the Federal President"), a federal agency.

Roman Herzog, president from 1994 to 1999, remains the only officeholder who lived at Bellevue while incumbent. The Palace was reconstructed again in 2004 and 2005 to remedy defects in earlier renovations; during this period, President Horst Köhler used nearby Charlottenburg Palace for representative purposes. Bellevue became the president's primary official seat again in January 2006, but since then has not included living quarters. Instead, the Federal President now lives in a government-owned villa in Dahlem, a suburban district of southwestern Berlin.

Bellevue Palace 

The Palais am Festungsgraben (“Palace on the Moat”), originally known as the Palais Donner, is a stately building in Berlin’s Mitte subdistrict located behind, and facing, the ensemble of chestnut trees around the Neue Wache (“New Guardhause”), near the eastern terminus of the boulevard Unter den Linden. The name refers to its construction next to a redundant canal, gradually filled in by 1883, which had originally been a moat surrounding the 17th century city wall. Built as a private residence, it later housed a succession of Prussian government offices, and after World War II various cultural institutions in the Soviet sector of Berlin. After administrative authority was transferred to the newly established German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1949 it hosted a succession of institutions established to further German-Russian contacts. Since German reunification it has accommodated a theater (Theater im Palais) and from 2004 an art gallery (Saarländische Galerie – Europäisches Kunstforum e.V.).

By royal order King Friedrich II of Prussia presented the plot to his valet, Johann Gottfried Donner, on 7 November 1751. Donner had the palace constructed from 1751 to 1753 following plans by the court architect Friedrich Feldmann. Donner and his family lived on the ground floor of the palace and on the first upper storey (bel étage) Donner installed a large, elegant hall for public festivities as well as a private residence, which was rented to the administrator of the Prussian mint, Johann Philipp Graumann. The attic was used to store and air bulk grain, and at the back of the lot Donner laid out a garden with an underground cold storage room (Eiskeller) and a carriage house, using the remaining space to run a flourishing trade in timber.

After Donner’s death in 1787 the Prussian Finance Ministry purchased the palace and provided lodgings on the top floor for its senior officers. In 1797 the right side wing was raised one storey. The reformist Prussian statesman Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein lived there from 1804 to 1806. In 1863-1864 the building was altered according to plans by the architects Georg Heinrich Bürde and Hermann von der Hude, who redesigned the main staircase and laid out a sequence of several prestigious interconnected rooms on the bel étage. From 1906 until 1944 the palace was the official headquarters of the Prussian Finance Ministry and the residence of 48 ministers. Further modifications took place in 1934 when the Prussian finance minister Johannes Popitz built into the eastern ground floor room the formal dining room of the historic Weydinger House on Unterwasserstrasse. The hall was of high artistic value, being the only remaining example of interior decoration by the prominent Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, who had designed the banquet room of this private residence in 1830. Owned by the Prussian state since 1860, Weydinger House was torn down to construct the Reichsbank, the central bank of Germany from 1876 until 1945.

In World War II the palace was slightly damaged in air strikes and by combat taking place at the end of the war. The Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) had the building repaired and used it for various purposes, opening it to the public in 1947 as the House of Soviet Culture (Haus der Kultur der Sowjetunion). In 1949, now as an institution of the GDR, it became the House of German-Soviet Friendship (run by the Gesellschaft für Deutsch-Sowjetische Freundschaft). As one of the so-called mass organizations of the GDR, it had the mandate to convey to the German population knowledge about the culture and society of the Soviet Union.

After German reunification the listed building came under the ownership of the Federal State of Berlin, was extensively renovated, and renamed Palais am Festungsgraben. Since its founding in 1991 the 99-seat, innovative Theater im Palais has been located on the ground floor, and in September 2004 the federal state of Saarland rented 200 square meters of exhibition space in the palace for an art gallery, the Saarländische Galerie, featuring work by contemporary artists from the Czech Republic, France, Luxemburg, and Belgium as well as from Saarland and Berlin.

Palais am Festungsgraben

The Kronprinzenpalais (Crown Prince's Palace) is a landmark late Neoclassical-style building at one end of Unter den Linden in Berlin. It was a palace of the ruling Hohenzollern house of Prussia until the abolition of the monarchy at the end of World War I. It then became an annexe of the Berlin National Gallery, housing a preeminent collection of modern art. It was closed by the Nazis and the building was destroyed in World War II. It was rebuilt in 1968 and used by East Germany as a guest house for official visitors to their capital of East Berlin. Since German reunification it has been used for exhibitions and cultural events.

Johann Arnold Nering created the building in 1663–69 as the private residence of Cabinet Secretary Johann Martitz, converting an existing middle-class house. From 1706 to 1732, it was the official residence of the Governor of Berlin.

In 1732, Philipp Gerlach (de) remodelled the building in baroque style with a protruding central bay and a carriage drive rising to the front entrance, to serve as a residence for the Crown Prince, the future King Frederick II. He and his wife Elisabeth Christine stayed there only intermittently before his accession to the throne in 1740, after which he took up residence in part of the royal palace. He gave the Kronprinzenpalais to his brother Augustus William; after Augustus William's death in 1758, his widow continued to use it until 1780.

The building was then renovated and refurnished in Neoclassical style (with furniture from Prussia rather than France) and became the residence of Crown Prince Frederick William (the future Frederick William III) and his wife Louise, who lived there with their children and Countess Voss, who had an apartment near the entrance. They remained there after he became king and the Palace was now called Königliches Palais (Royal Palace). Johann Gottfried Schadow created his double statue of Crown Princess Louise and her sister Frederica, the Prinzessinnengruppe, in the palace in 1795–97. The future Emperor William I was born there on 22 March 1797. In the early 19th century, Karl Friedrich Schinkel renovated several rooms in the palace; he also designed an extension over the Oberwallstraße connecting the palace to the Kronprinzessinnenpalais (Crown Princesses' Palace), where the king's three daughters were living; this was built in 1811 by Heinrich Gentz in association with his remodelling of the exterior of the Prinzessinenpalais. After Louise's early death, Frederick William maintained a family shrine to her in the palace. The main building was known as the Königliches Palais (Royal Palace) until 1840; after 1840, when the king died, it was known as the former Royal Palace, and was not used by any members of the royal family; during the reign of Frederick William IV, it housed court officials, and Rudolf Lepke, who founded a major auction house, grew up there.

In 1856–57, Johann Heinrich Strack extensively rebuilt the palace for William I's son, Prince Frederick William (the future Kaiser Frederick III), giving it substantially its present appearance. Strack replaced the mansard roof with a third storey with Corinthian pillars, and added neo-classical details to the façade, whose columns he changed from Tuscan to Corinthian. The four statues above the entrance remained, but he added a tall columned portico surmounted by a balcony. He also built a setback addition on the east side of the building, with a colonnade on its Unter den Linden and Niederlagstraße sides. After 1861, when Frederick William's father acceded to the throne and he became Crown Prince, the building was once again known as the Kronprinzenpalais; he resided there with his wife Princess Victoria, daughter of England's Queen Victoria.

Their eldest son, who would be the last German Emperor as Wilhelm II, was born in the palace on 27 January 1859. Princess Victoria welcomed artists and scholars to the palace, including Heinrich von Angeli, Anton von Werner and Adolph von Menzel. However, after Frederick III's death in 1888 following a 99-day reign, she was usually at her new residence, Schloß Friedrichshof, and the palace was rarely used. Beginning in 1905, it was used as a winter residence by Wilhelm II's heir, Crown Prince Wilhelm, and his wife Crown Princess Cecilie. During the November revolution in Berlin in 1918, revolutionary leaders addressed the crowd from the entrance ramp of the palace.

After the dissolution of the monarchy, the palace became a possession of the State of Prussia, which gave it to the National Gallery in 1919 to house its drawing collection. The director, Ludwig Justi, used this annexe to the existing building (now known as the Alte Nationalgalerie) to house a new department devoted to living artists, the Galerie der Lebenden, something which he had proposed the previous year and which contemporary artists themselves had been demanding. This opened on 4 August 1919 with approximately 150 paintings and sculptures including naturalistic and French Impressionist works, a sculpture by Rodin (in a room retaining the old palace décor, which also featured paintings by Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Manet), works representing both the establishment Verein Berliner Künstler and the Berlin Secession, and on the top floor in a temporary display, works by members of Die Brücke and other Expressionists. This was the first state promotion in Germany of Expressionist works, which were unpopular with large numbers of the public. The gallery was a pioneer of the museum of contemporary art; in the judgement of the assistant director of the National Gallery at the time, the collection was superior to that of all other German galleries then collecting modern art. It served as a model for later institutions, notably the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which opened two years after its first director, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., visited the Kronprinzenpalais in 1927. On the other hand, the art critic Karl Scheffler, who favoured Impressionism and disliked Expressionism, attacked Justi for opening the contemporary art gallery, publishing a book in 1921 with the title Berliner Museumskrieg (Berlin Museum War).

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, there was an initial period of tolerance of modern art, but then Hitler ordered the galleries to be "cleansed" of it, in particular the Kronprinzenpalais. In May 1936, works from the Ismar Littmann collection of Expressionist art which had been confiscated by the Gestapo from a Berlin auction house were burnt in the furnace. Eberhard Hanfstaengl, the then director of the National Gallery, was ordered to set aside only a few "historically valuable" works and saved five paintings and ten drawings. The Expressionist gallery was closed in October 1936, after the Berlin Olympics had ended, as a "hotbed of cultural Bolshevism".

In the 1937 Nazi operation against Entartete Kunst (degenerate art), the National Gallery lost a total of 435 works. The Kronprinzenpalais contributed far more works than any other institution to the exhibition by that name which opened in Munich on 19 July. The majority of the Expressionist works were officially labelled Verfallskunst (art of decay) the same month. National Gallery Director Justi had been forced out in the 1933 purge of ideologically suspect academics and civil servants; his successor, Alois Schardt, was forced to resign after Bernhard Rust, the Nazi Minister of Education for Prussia, who had responsibility for museums, visited the modern art gallery; he was in turn succeeded by Hanfstaengl, who was also forced to resign after refusing to meet with Adolf Ziegler and his commission charged with identifying and removing the "degenerate" artworks. The commission made two "cleansing" visits to the Kronprinzenpalais: on 7 July before the exhibition opened and again in August. Some members of the commission were at first reluctant to purge the works of August Macke and Franz Marc, both of whom had died fighting in the First World War; they were ultimately also removed, but works by Marc including Tower of Blue Horses were removed from the Entartete Kunst exhibition before it moved from Munich to Berlin. The National Gallery was compensated RM 150,000 for The Garden of Daubigny by Van Gogh and RM 15,000 for four paintings by Paul Signac and Edvard Munch by Göring, who took a group of 13 modern paintings to offer them privately for sale through an art dealer he knew, and roughly one sixth of its total loss of over RM 1 million after the official auctions of "degenerate art" in Switzerland.

Later in 1937, the building became the seat of the Prussian Academy of Arts, whose building in Pariser Platz had been requisitioned by Albert Speer's office. The Director of the Schauspielhaus theatre in the Gendarmenmarkt, Gustaf Gründgens, also temporarily had his office in the building.

In March 1945, the Kronprinzenpalais was gutted in an Allied bomb attack. Until 1958, a ballet school used a remaining rear section, but the site was entirely cleared in 1961.

In 1968–69, to complete the restoration of the south side of Unter den Linden and make a suitable visual transition to the newly completed Foreign Ministry skyscraper (since demolished) and the rest of the East German government district immediately to the east, the Kronprinzenpalais was rebuilt with approximately the same exterior appearance as after Strack's work by Richard Paulick, a former associate of Walter Gropius who had already rebuilt the Kronprinzessinnenpalais and the State Opera, and Werner Prendel. (Paulick had originally intended to rebuild it as it had been in 1733, for use as a modern museum, music school, or performance space, but conceptions of the role of the area changed in the 1960s.) However, the top floor was extended to include the east wing to improve the building's proportions, and the interior (1968–70) was modern. As the Palais Unter den Linden, it was used as a guest house by the Magistrat, the governing executive of East Berlin. The Unification Agreement was signed there on 31 August 1990, after which the Senate of Berlin took possession of the building.

The garden, which extends from Oberwallstraße to Niederlagstraße and has underground parking garages under part of it, was newly laid out in 1969–70 by W. Hinkefuß and descends in terraces to a central lawn, and then rises again in further terraces to a restaurant called the Schinkelklause, which incorporates pieces of terracotta and an entrance from Schinkel's Bauakademie, which was partially destroyed in World War II and demolished around 1960. The sculptures in the garden are by Senta Baldamus (de), Gerhard Thierse and Gerhard Lichtenfelds (de).

From 1998 to 2003, the Kronprinzenpalais was used as temporary exhibit space by the Deutsches Historisches Museum while its primary building, the Zeughaus across the street, was under renovation. It continues to be used for exhibitions and other cultural events. For example, in 2005 it housed an exhibition on Albert Einstein, and in spring 2006 Joshua Sobol's polydrama Alma, on Alma Mahler, played scenes simultaneously in various rooms, which required temporarily reconstructing the historical appearance of the interior. In 2006 the building housed Erzwungene Wege—Flucht und Vertreibung im Europa des 20. Jahrhunderts, a controversial exhibition on expulsions of Germans in 20th-century Europe organised by the Federation of Expellees, and in March–June 2012 it housed a three-part exhibition dealing more broadly with forced exile and including Erzwungene Wege as one of its components The building is a Berlin historic landmark

Kronprinzenpalais

The magnificent dome of the Cathedral Church (Berliner Dom) is one of the main landmarks in Berlin’s cityscape – and marks the spot of the impressive basilica housing the city’s most important Protestant church. With its elaborate decorative and ornamental designs, the church interior is especially worth seeing.
Yet although the church is known as a cathedral, it actually has the status of a parish church – though not just any parish. This was the court church to the Hohenzollern dynasty, the rulers of Prussia and later the German Emperors. Today, as the High Parish and Cathedral Church, the church serves the Protestant community in Berlin and the surrounding areas. The congregation is not based on place of residence, but open through admission to all baptised Protestants in the region.

The history of the church on the island in the River Spree goes back to the fifteenth century, when the chapel of the new royal city palace was elevated to the status of a collegiate church. As a collegiate church, this was a Domkirche (cathedral church). Even though not technically a cathedral, since it is neither the seat of a bishop nor the central church in a diocese, the church continued to be known as the Dom (cathedral) down the centuries.
In the early nineteenth century, Prussia’s leading architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel transformed the court church into a neo-classical building. But fifty years on, tastes had changed. By the time Friedrich Wilhelm II came to throne as Emperor of Germany in 1888, several designs had been proposed for a new church, though none had been accepted. The Emperor also found the Schinkel church far too modest, and insisted on a new monumental church in keeping with the imperial monarchy’s power and prestige. Architect Julius Carl Raschdorff was commissioned for the new church, but had to present three designs before Wilhelm II was satisfied. Raschdorff’s opulent, grandiose structure was Berlin’s answer to Saint Peter’s in Rome and Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The old building was demolished in 1893, and the foundation stone for the new church laid in 1894. Eleven years later in 1905, the new church was consecrated. The church was severely damaged during the Second World War. After the division of Germany, the Cathedral Church was in East Berlin. The work on restoring the church began there in 1975, although in a simplified form. The full restoration was only completed in 1993, four years after the Berlin Wall fell. In 2008, a new golden cross on the dome replaced the rather simple one from the East German period.

The Cathedral Church is dominated by a monumental dome crowned by a lantern with a golden cross and flanked by four towers. Raschdorff drew his inspiration from the Italian High Renaissance and the more florid baroque style. With its lavish mix of ornamental mosaics, gold features and impressive statues, the octagonal interior is clearly informed by the late nineteenth century’s love of grand gestures and display. The most notable works of art are the marble and onyx altar, designed by Friedrich August Stüler, and the white marble baptismal font by Christian Daniel Rauch. In the Baptismal and Matrimonial Chapel, the monumental painting of the Descent of the Holy Spirit by Carl Begas in the style of Raphael is also well worth seeing.

The main nave with the massive dome soaring above it is certainly one of the church’s signature sights, and not to be missed. In contrast, the simpler Baptismal and Matrimonial Chapel is far more meditative, inviting visitors to stop, rest and reflect. The Hohenzollern Crypt, the most important dynastic sepulchre in Germany, contains nearly 100 sarcophagi and burial monuments from four centuries. Some are plain and simple, while others are extremely ornate as, for example, the sarcophagi carved by Andreas Schlüter for Friedrich I and Queen Sophie Charlotte, which are ranked as masterpieces of baroque sculpture.
The only Hohenzollern ruler not buried here is Kaiser Wilhelm II, who abdicated at the end of the First World War in 1918. His body lies in a mausoleum in the grounds of his house in Holland, where he lived in exile.

The museum showcases drawings, designs and models illustrating the history of the Cathedral Church. In particular, the walk-in models give an impressive sense of the church interior. And to get a marvellous impression of the exterior, you can climb 270 steps to the dome’s outer walkway – and be rewarded by some stunning panoramic views! The richly decorated Imperial Staircase was intended for the use of the German Emperor. The stairwell comes with an American-made elevator included at the wish of Kaiser Wilhelm II, an enthusiastic follower of new technologies. The elevator is available for use by visitors with disabilities.

There is no viewing of the Cathedral Church during religious services and events.

Berlin Cathedral

The Berlin City Palace (German: Berliner Stadtschloss) was a royal and imperial palace in the centre of Berlin, the historical capital of Prussia, and subsequently Germany. It was located on the Museum Island at Schlossplatz, opposite the Lustgarten park. It was the winter residence of the Kings of Prussia and the German Emperors. In 2013 work started on reconstruction and a part of the exterior of the palace has been rebuilt. The completion is expected in 2019.

The palace was originally built in the 15th century and changed throughout the next few centuries. It bore features of the Baroque style, and its shape, finalised by the middle 18th century, is attributed to German architect Andreas Schlüter, whose first design is likely to date from 1702, though the palace incorporated earlier parts seen in 1688 by Nicodemus Tessin. It served as a residence to various Electors of Brandenburg. It was the principal residence and winter residence of the Hohenzollern Kings of Prussia from 1701 to 1918. After the unification of Germany in 1871, it was also the central residence for the German Emperors. It became a museum following the fall of the German Empire in 1918. The palace was heavily damaged by Allied bombing in World War II. Although it could have been repaired, the palace was demolished in 1950 by the German Democratic Republic authorities, despite criticism.

Following the reunification of Germany, it was decided to rebuild the entire exterior of the palace in the original style except for one side. The new building will have the cubature of the former palace and include authentically reconstructed facades on three of the four exterior sides of the building. The interior will be modern, but the facades of one of the courts will be in the original style (Schlüterhof). However, the floorplan has been designed to allow potential future reconstruction of notable historical rooms. The building will house the Humboldtforum museum and congress complex, and is scheduled to be finished 14 September 2019.

The palace replaced an earlier fort or castle guarding the crossing of the Spree river at Cölln, a neighboring town which merged with Berlin in 1710. The castle stood on Fishers' Island, as the southern end of the Museum Island in the Spree is known. In 1443 Frederick II "Irontooth", Margrave and Prince Elector of Brandenburg, laid the foundations of Berlin's first fortification in a section of swampy wasteland north of Cölln. At the completion of the castle in 1451, Frederick moved there from the town of Brandenburg. The main role of the castle and its garrison in this period was to establish the authority of the Margraves over the unruly citizens of Berlin, who were reluctant to give up their medieval privileges to a monarchy. In 1415 King Sigismund had enfeoffed the Hohenzollern princes with Brandenburg, and they were now establishing their power and withdrawing electoral privileges which the cities had attained in the Brandenburg interregnum of 1319–1415.

The castle also included a chapel . In 1454 Frederick II, after having returned via Rome from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, made the castle chapel a parish church, richly endowing it with relics and altars. Pope Nicholas V ordered Stephan Bodecker, then Prince-Bishop of Brandenburg, to consecrate the Chapel to Erasmus of Formiae.

On 7 April 1465, at Frederick's request, Pope Paul II attributed to St Erasmus Chapel a canon-law College named Stift zu Ehren Unserer Lieben Frauen, des heiligen Kreuzes, St. Petri und Pauli, St. Erasmi und St. Nicolai. This collegiate church became the nucleus of today's Evangelical Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church, adjoining the site of the castle.

In 1538, the Margrave Joachim II demolished the palace and engaged the master builder Caspar Theiss to build a new and grander building in the Italian Renaissance style. After the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), Frederick William (1620–1688), the "Great Elector", embellished the palace further. In 1688, Nicodemus Tessin designed courtyard arcades with massive columns in front. Not much is known about the alterations of 1690–1695, when Johann Nering was the court architect. Martin Grünberg continued the alterations in 1695–1699.

In 1699 the Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg (who took the title King in Prussia in 1701, becoming Frederick I), appointed the architect Andreas Schlüter to execute a "second plan" in the Italian manner. Schlüter's first design probably dates from 1702; he planned to rebuild the palace in the Protestant Baroque style. His overall concept in the shape of a regular cube enclosing a magnificently ornamented courtyard was retained by all the building directors who succeeded him. In 1706, Schlüter was replaced by Johann Friedrich Eosander von Göthe, who designed the western extension of the palace, doubling its size. In all essentials, Schlüter's balanced, rhythmic composition of the façades was retained, but Göthe moved the main entrance to the new west wing.

Frederick William I, who became king in 1713, was interested mainly in building up Prussia as a military power, and dismissed most of the craftsmen working on the Stadtschloss. As a result, Göthe's plan was only partly carried out. Nevertheless, the exterior of the palace had come close to its final form by the mid-18th century. The final stage was the erection of the dome in 1845, during the reign of Frederick William IV. The dome was built by Friedrich August Stüler after a design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Subsequent major works were limited to the interior, engaging the talents of Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff, Carl von Gontard and many others.

The Stadtschloss was at the centre of the Revolution of 1848 in Prussia. Huge crowds gathered outside the palace to present an "address to the king" containing their demands for a constitution, liberal reform and German unification. Frederick William emerged from the palace to accept their demands. On 18 March, a large demonstration outside the Stadtschloss led to bloodshed and the outbreak of street fighting. Frederick William later reneged on his promises and reimposed an autocratic regime. From that time onwards, many Berliners and other Germans came to see the Stadtschloss as a symbol of oppression and "Prussian militarism".

In 1871, King William I was elevated to the status of Emperor (Kaiser) of a united Germany, and the Stadtschloss became the symbolic centre of the German Empire. The Empire was, however, at least in theory a constitutional state, and from 1894 the new Reichstag building, the seat of the German parliament, came to rival and overshadow the Stadtschloss as the centre of power. In conjunction with Germany's defeat in World War I, William II was forced to abdicate both as German Emperor and as King of Prussia. In November 1918, the Spartacist leader, Karl Liebknecht, declared the German Socialist Republic from a balcony of the Stadtschloss, ending more than 400 years of royal occupation of the building.

During the Weimar Republic, parts of the Stadtschloss were turned into a museum, while other parts continued to be used for receptions and other state functions. Under Adolf Hitler's National Socialist (Nazi) Party, which laid to rest monarchist hopes of a Hohenzollern restoration, the building was mostly ignored. During World War II, the Stadtschloss was twice struck by Allied bombs: on 3 February and 24 February 1945. On the latter occasion, when the air defence and fire-fighting systems of Berlin had been destroyed, the building was struck by incendiaries, lost its roof and was largely burnt out.

The end of the war saw the Stadtschloss a burned-out shell of its former glory, although the building had remained structurally sound and much of its interior decoration was still preserved. It could have been restored, as many other bombed-out buildings in central Berlin later were. However, the area in which it was located was within the Soviet Union zone, which became the German Democratic Republic. The building was used for a Soviet war movie ("the Battle of Berlin") in which the Stadtschloss served as a backdrop, with live artillery shells fired at it for the realistic cinematic impact.

The new Communist regime installed in East Berlin by the Soviet Union declared the Stadtschloss a symbol of Prussian militarism, although at that time there appeared to be no plans to destroy the building. Some parts of it were in fact repaired and used from 1945 to 1950 as an exhibition space. A secret 1950 GDR Ministry of Construction report, only rediscovered in 2016, calculated that reconstruction of the damaged Palace could be achieved for 32 million GDR marks. (The average monthly salary of an East Berliner in 1950 was 265.25 marks.) However, in July 1950 Walter Ulbricht, the new General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, announced the demolition of the palace. Despite objections, its removal commenced in September 1950, the process taking four months and consuming 19 tons of dynamite. So solid was its construction that the dome and its entire mount remained intact even after it is fell to the ground. Only one section was preserved, a portal from the balcony of which Karl Liebknecht had declared the German Socialist Republic. It was later added to the Council of State building (Staatsratsgebäude), with an altered cartouche, where it forms the main entrance. The empty space where the Stadtschloss had stood was named Marx-Engels-Platz and used as a parade ground.

In 1964, the GDR built a new Staatsrat or Council of State building on part of the site, incorporating Liebknecht's balcony in its facade. From 1973 to 1976, during the reign of Erich Honecker, a large modernist building was built, the Palast der Republik (Palace of the Republic), which occupied most of the site of the former Stadtschloss. Shortly before German reunification in October 1990, the Palast der Republik was found to be contaminated with asbestos and was closed to the public. After reunification, the Berlin city government ordered the removal of the asbestos, a process which was completed by 2003. In November 2003, the German federal government decided to demolish the building and leave the area as parkland pending a decision as to its ultimate future. Demolition started in February 2006 and was completed in 2009. Some former east Germans resented the demolition, especially those for whom the Palace of the Republic had been a place of fond memories, or who felt a sense a dislocation in a post-communist world.

From 2008 until the commencement of construction in 2013, the large area of original Schlossplatz became a grassed field, laid out on minimal lines with wooden platforms. At the same time, the Berlin Monument Authority (Landesdenkmalamt) undertook extensive archaeological excavations. Parts of cellars that had been situated in the south-west corner of former Palace were discovered; at it was decided these would be preserved and made accessible to visitors as an "archaeological window".

Following reunification a 20-year-long debate commenced as to whether the palace should be reconstructed, and whether this should be in part or whole. Pro-reconstruction lobby groups argued that the rebuilding of the Stadtschloss would restore the unity and integrity of the historical centre of Berlin, which includes the Berliner Dom, the Lustgarten and the museums of Museum Island. Opponents of the project included those who advocated the retention of the Palast der Republik on the grounds that it was itself of historical significance; those who argued that the area should become a public park; and those who believed that a new building would be a pastiche of former architectural styles; would be an unwelcome symbol of Germany's imperial past; and would be unacceptably expensive for no definite economic benefit. They also argued that it would be impossible to accurately reconstruct the exterior or interiors of the building, since neither detailed plans nor the necessary craft skills are available. Others disputed this, claiming that sufficient photographic documentation of both existed when it was converted to a museum following 1918.

The ideological divide was symbolised by two groups. The Association for the Preservation of the Palace of the Republic (Verein zur Erhaltung des Palastes der Republik) championed a renovation of the GDR building that would incorporate a re-creation of the principal western facade the City Place, for a multipurpose people's centre similar to the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The Berlin City Palace Sponsoring Association (Förderverein Berliner Stadtschloß) argued for complete external reconstruction of the City Palace, considering it the only option that would restore the aesthetic and historic ensemble at Berlin's heart. It also rejected suggestions that the proposed meticulous reconstruction would be an unauthentic 'Disney' replica, drawing attention to the fact that most centuries-old stone buildings are, by dint of aging and repair, at least partial reconstructions; and that the argument that the present time can only represent itself in its own architectural language, is simply ideology. It also drew attention to the Venice Charter observation that "historic edifices have a material age and an immaterial significance" – an importance that transcends time, and justifies their reconstruction to preserve a vital part of urban identity and historical memory, provided that sufficient documentation for a truly authentic copy exists.

The driving force in ultimately achieving reconstruction of the Stadtschloss was a Hamburg businessman and aristocrat Wilhelm von Boddien, described as "a great communicator". Until von Boddien and his associates became involved, the Government had given no thought to rebuilding the entire palace. In 1992 von Boddien founded and became Chairman of what evolved to be the Berlin City Palace Sponsoring Association – which became the most influential lobby group. The Association accumulated plans that had been believed lost, and funded a research project at the Technical University of Berlin to measure surviving photos and drawings of the Palace to create precise architectural plans. In 1993, on the world's largest scaffolding assembly, it audaciously erected a trompe-l'oeil mockup of two frontages of the Stadtschloss facade on a 1:1 scale on plastic sheeting. Privately funded by donations and sponsorship this coup de théâtre stood for a year and half. Showing a vision of central Berlin lost for fifty years, and how the palace could provide the missing link to the historical ensemble of the Zeughaus, the Altes Museum, and the Berlin Cathedral, the spectacle brought the debate to a temporary climax in 1993/4. While opinion continued to remain divided, it succeeded in winning over many politicians and other key figures for the endeavour.

In view of the previous opposition, including high cost, and most importantly, the psychological and political objections, successive German governments had declined to commit themselves to the project. However, by 2002 and 2003 cross-party resolutions of the Bundestag reached a compromise to support at least a partial rebuilding of the Stadtschloss. In 2007, the Bundestag (German parliament) made a definitive decision about the reconstruction. According to this compromise, which had been drawn up by a commission, three façades of the palace would be rebuilt, but the interior would be a modern structure to serve as a cultural museum and forum. An architectural competition was held, and in 2008 the jury chose the submission by Italian architect Franco Stella. Some of the internal spaces in Stella's design follow the exact proportions of the original state rooms of the palace, so as to facilitate their reconstruction at a later date should this be desired. The reconstruction also reproduces the original metre-thick width of the outer walls. However these have been rebuilt as a sandwiched construction: an inner retaining wall of concrete, followed by a layer of insulation, and an outer wall of brick, sandstone and stucco which replicates the original. Reconstruction of the Renaissance-gabled Pharmacy Wing, which connected to the Stadtschloss on the north side, would be another possible future project.

Due to German government budget cuts, construction of the 'Humboldtforum', as the new palace was titled, was delayed. The foundation stone was finally laid by President Joachim Gauck in a ceremony on 12 June 2013 signalling the launch of a €590m (£500m) reconstruction project. On completion in 2019 the building will house a modern museum containing collections of African and other non-European art, as well as two restaurants, a theater, a movie theater and an auditorium. Donations continue to be sought for the baroque facade decoration by Förderverein Berliner Schloss eV, which is funding this part of the reconstruction.

City Palace (Berlin)

Oranienburg Palace (German: Schloss Oranienburg) is a Schloss located in the town of Oranienburg in Germany. It is the oldest Baroque Schloss in the Margraviate of Brandenburg and built in a Dutch style.