The history of the Ephraim Palace is linked to the namesake Veitel
Heine Ephraim. Its importance derives from the connection between the
situation of the Jews in Prussia at the time of Frederick II and the
king's constant financial difficulties. The building was constructed
between 1762 and 1769.
Ephraim was one of the king's privileged
protected Jews. As a wealthy merchant and banker, he had already lent
money to the crown prince, who later became King Frederick II, and
thereby secured his goodwill. Later he financed a large part of
Frederick's campaigns. On the king's orders, he reduced the quality of
the silver coins and took responsibility for it - also by royal order.
The citizens reacted with satirical verses: "Silver on the outside, tin
on the inside / Friedrich on the outside, Ephraim on the inside", these
low-value coins were called Ephraimites. He acquired a large fortune as
a coin leaseholder, collector of war contributions in occupied
territories, as court jeweler and through other businesses. He invested
part of the money in manufactories and production facilities and thus
promoted the economic development of Berlin. In order to be able to
represent his position appropriately, he bought the town house of a
Berlin family in 1762 and had it completely renovated.
Building
The oldest pharmacy in Berlin once stood on the property at
the corner of Poststraße and Mühlendamm. Ephraim commissioned the
architect Friedrich Wilhelm Diterichs to build a handsome city palace
here. Diterichs had been chief building director in Berlin since 1742
and had erected important buildings, including the Bethlehem Church and
the Princess Palace. Between 1762 and 1766 a four-storey building was
built, the two wings of which meet at an obtuse angle.
The
architect designed the difficult connection of the building parts as a
rounded corner, which is preceded by a balcony, richly decorated with a
filigree, gilded lattice and with putti figures and supported by Tuscan
columns, which frame the main portal at ground level. These double
columns continue in the vertical structure of the facade; a balustrade
decorated with vases forms the upper end.
The characteristic
motif of the rounded corner is taken up inside. There, the rooms of the
side wings are accessed via an oval vestibule, behind which lies a
bright, also oval staircase with spirally rising steps. The elliptical
shape can also be found in the ballroom on the main floor.
The client Ephraim lived and worked in the palace himself. There was
a silver refinery in the courtyard. The shops on the ground floor, which
extended the stalls on the Mühlendamm colonnade, were rented out.
Ephraim died in 1775. The palace remained in the family until 1823.
In 1843, the city of Berlin acquired the house, which was
conveniently located. The magistrate housed police officers and the
registration office here. 1892-1895 the architect and city planning
director Hermann Blankenstein expanded the attic. In 1888, the
Mühlendamm was raised by 1.20 meters to widen the roadway. Here, the
ground floor shops were lost. This change in level also led to changes
in the façade.
To replace the fixed Mühlendamm with a bridge in
1935, an even steeper ramp was needed to cross the Spree. The
Ephraimpalais was demolished in connection with the plans of the
National Socialists to create a district forum in front of the town hall
and a representative access road. From then on, the property served as
an access road to a makeshift bridge, which accommodated traffic during
the construction work.
The façade and individual components were
stored in what later became West Berlin in a storage area in the
district of Wedding, where they survived the Second World War. At times
it was intended in West Berlin to rebuild the palace at a new location
in Kreuzberg's Lindenstrasse and to use it as a museum building for the
planned Jewish department of the Berlin Museum. This plan could not be
implemented because the construction documents were in East Berlin and
the costs (estimated at around 1982 at around 30 million marks) seemed
too high.
When the construction of the Nikolaiviertel in East
Berlin began in preparation for the 750th anniversary of Berlin, the
West Berlin House of Representatives decided in 1982 to make the
preserved components available. In return, the GDR handed over, among
other things, the archives of the Royal Porcelain Manufactory (KPM) to
the western part of the city. A number of other cultural assets were
exchanged at the time.
Under the direction of the architect Franz
Klinger, the Ephraim Palais was rebuilt from 1985 to 1987, based on the
original building and using the preserved parts of the facade, about 12
meters north of the original location. The original location was no
longer available as a result of the widening of the Mühlendamm in the
1960s to a total of eight lanes.
The interiors were decorated
with simplified rococo ornamentation. A room on the first floor
contained a copy of a ceiling designed by Andreas Schlueter from the
Wartenberg Palace, which was demolished in 1889.
After around
four years of construction, the Ephraim Palais was reopened with a
ceremony on May 19, 1987, now as part of the Märkisches Museum. After
German reunification, it was affiliated with the Stiftung Stadtmuseum
Berlin. Changing exhibitions are shown on three floors, which are
intended to appeal first to Berliners and tourists and are intended to
address the Berlin attitude to life and everyday topics such as sports,
East and West Berlin, pleasure/celebrations, subcultures, housing/life
or work. Larger exhibitions were “West:Berlin. An Island in Search of
Mainland”, “Dance on the Volcano – The Berlin of the Twenties as
Reflected in the Arts” and “Berlin – City of Women”. The house also
houses the graphic collection of the city museum. This covers a period
from the 16th century to the present. 110,000 sheets result in a
pictorial memory of Berlin, the Mark Brandenburg and Prussia.