The Crown Prince Palace is a monument on the boulevard Unter den Linden 3 in the Mitte and part of the Fridericianum Forum. It was built in 1663 by an unknown master builder and most recently rebuilt by Heinrich Strack in the style of classicism in 1857. Burned out in the Second World War and torn down in 1961, it was reconstructed by Richard Paulick as a Palais under the Linden in 1968-1970. On August 31, 1990, the unification contract between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic was signed in the Crown Prince Palace.
The palace was built in 1663 by an unknown builder as a private house
of the cabinet secretary Johann Martitz. From 1706 to 1732, the palace
served as an official apartment for the governor of Berlin. In 1732 it
was converted by Philipp Gerlach to a baroque palace with a ramp and
middle ramp for the crown prince, the later King Friedrich II, while the
governor's seat was moved to the governor house. Friedrich lived in the
palace with his wife Elisabeth Christine only during the short stays in
Berlin until he was in the throne in 1740. Then he set up an apartment
in Berlin's castle and in 1742 handed over the palace to his brother
August Wilhelm (1722–1758), his Widow it used until 1780.
After
renovation and re -establishment, the crown prince Friedrich Wilhelm and
Luise, the royal couple, with his children and the countess Voss
(1729–1814), lived here since 1793. Between 1795 and 1797, the sculptor
Johann Gottfried Schadow in the Crown Prince Palace made the princess
group, a double standscape of the princesses Luise and Friederike von
Prussia. Luise brought back to the world in 1795 and 1797 in the Palais:
King Friedrich Wilhelm IV and Kaiser Wilhelm I. After the then unknown
Karl Friedrich Schinkel had redesigned several rooms of the Palais
around 1809, represented Friedrich Wilhelm III. to establish a
connection to the neighboring princess palace bridging the
Oberwallstrasse, in which his three daughters then lived. From 1797 to
1840 the building was called the Royal Palace, after 1840 former royal
palace. After the death of Frederick Wilhelm III. In 1840, no member of
the royal family initially lived in the house.
When the childless
King Friedrich Wilhelm IV took place in 1840, his younger brother
Wilhelm was determined as Prince of Prussia as his successor. In the
years 1856–1857, Johann Heinrich Strack fundamentally rebuilt the Palais
for his son Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, who was now married to Victoria of
Great Britain and Ireland. Strack replaced the original mansard roof
with a third floor and covered the baroque facade, the basic structure
of which he maintained with the colossal pilasters and the strong beams,
with a classicist ornamentation and sent the entrance area with a column
portics with balcony. He also built a back wing east and surrounded it
with a colonnade to the Linden and along the Niederlagstraße. His
current appearance goes back to the conversion through Strack.
On
January 27, 1859, Victoria in the Palais gave birth to Wilhelm II, the
last German emperor. The palace of Prince Friedrich Wilhelm was again
called Crown Prince's Palace after he had become crowned by his father
Crown Prince in 1861.
In his palace, the crown prince couple
regularly dealt with dealing with artists and scholars, including
Heinrich von Angeli, Anton von Werner and Adolph von Menzel. The eastern
side wing received a number of Wilhelminian panties, including a dining
room in the style of Andreas Schlüter in 1883 and a classicist dance
hall. After Frederick III, who had ruled only 99 days as emperor in
1888, it was mostly empty as the Palace of Empress Friedrich, since
Victoria had withdrawn to her new Friedrichshof Castle. Only the last
Prussian crown prince Wilhelm used it with crown princess Cecilie since
1905 in the winter months under the name Crown Prince Palace as a Berlin
residential building.
During the November Revolution in 1918, the
leaders of the revolutionary movement turned from the ramp of the Crown
Prince Palace to the masses. After the abolition of the monarchy, the
palace came into the possession of the Prussian state, which handed it
over to the Berlin National Gallery in 1919.
Ludwig Justi set up the new department of the Berlin National Gallery
in 1919 in the Crown Prince Palace, which - most recently under
restrictions - was shown here until 1937.
On August 4, 1919, the
living gallery was opened. 150 paintings and sculptures by the French
Impressionists as well as works by the Berlin Secession were taken from
the National Gallery to the converted Palais. The Dresden bridge artists
and other expressionists were shown on the upper floor. With this, which
is unique in the world for the art of modern art, Ludwig Justi created
the current type of the Museum of Contemporary Art and served as a model
with his “experimentation gallery” such as the Museum of Modern Art
(MoMA) in New York.
In 1933, Chancellor Adolf Hitler ordered a
"cleaning". The development of the crown prince palace was suddenly
interrupted. In May 1936, confiscated works of modern art confiscated
were burned in the heating cellar of the house. In 1936 the upper floor
was closed with paintings and sculptures by the German Expressionists.
On July 7, 1937, 435 works were confiscated from the Crown Prince
Palace, including 100 Expressionist works, to recruit them for the
Munich exhibition “degenerate art” opened on July 19, 1937. In the same
month, a large part of the expressionist paintings felled the verdict of
"expiry art". This ended the glamorous time of this collection, which
was unique in the world.
In 1937, the Prussian Academy of the
Arts moved into the Crown Prince Palace because it had to vacate its
headquarters in the Palais Arnim on Pariser Platz for the general
building inspector for the Reich capital. The director of the
Schauspielhaus, Gustaf Gründgens, also temporarily had his office in the
Crown Prince Palace.
During the Second World War, an allied air
raid destroyed the palace to the outer walls on March 18, 1945. The ruin
was removed in 1961.
In 1968–1970 Richard Paulick rebuilt the crown prince's palace
under the name Palais Unter den Linden in the form of changed form
compared to the pre -war state. He increased the side wing by one
floor and narrowed the balcony on the first floor onto a window
axis. The increased side wing should ensure that the three -storey
palace under the linden trees against the background of the 44
-meter -high ministry was not visually crushed for foreign affairs
of the GDR. The trophy jewelry above the windows on the ground floor
was dispensed with as well as the eagle sculptures on the Akanthus
frieze between the first and second floor. Paulick also replaced the
trophy jewelry above the central risalit with gods sculptures. The
interiors were equipped in a modern form in accordance with the use
as the guest house of the magistrate of East Berlin. Paulick
finished the garden of the Crown Prince Palace with the
"Schinkelklause" restaurant, which is now used as a Schinkel
pavilion for art exhibitions. On the facade, the left bronze portal
and several terracotta plates of the building academy demolished in
1962 were attached by Karl Friedrich Schinkel.
The garden of
the Crown Prince Palace, under which an underground car park is
located, was created in 1969–1970 according to Walter Hinkefuß plans
and extends from the Niederlagstrasse to Oberwallstrasse. From the
terrace of the Crown Prince Palace, a wide staircase leads to a
deeper lawn that is limited east of rose beds and west of trees.
Until the southern Schinkelkause, where the garden is planted with
shrubs and perennials, it rises again terrace -shaped. In the
garden, the bronze plastics are joie de vivre of Senta Baldamus, the
sunbathing end of Gerhard Lichtenfeld and the crouching end of
Gerhard Thieme.
On December 21, 1972, a buffet took place in
the Crown Prince Palace on the occasion of the signing of the basic
contract between the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany. In
addition to the building, instead of the demolished commandant
house, the Stein monument was temporarily set up in 1981. On August
31, 1990, the unification contract was signed in the Crown Prince
Palace, and the Senate of Berlin took over the building.
In
the years after reunification, the Crown Prince Palace was under
discussion as the seat of the Federal President. However, the
proposal triggered criticism because the Federal Presidential Office
also claimed the neighboring properties. The princess palace, in
which the opera café was housed, also fell underneath. Hardly an
adequate replacement location would have found itself for the café.
When the discussion became stronger, Federal President Richard von
Weizsäcker pulled a line by finally determining the previous
headquarters of Bellevue Schloss Bellevue in 1994. During the
renovation of Bellevue Castle in 2004-2005, the Federal Presidential
Office used the Palais for State Receons.
Between 1998 and
2003, the German Historical Museum used the Palais for Change
exhibitions during the renovation of its main house, the Zeughaus,
which are now taking place in the newly open cultivation of the
museum. Even after the Historical Museum moves out, the Crown Prince
Palace continues to be used for exhibitions and other cultural
events; In 2005 the large exhibition "Albert Einstein - Engineer of
the Universe" was seen here.
In the spring of 2006, the Crown
Prince Palace housed the interactive play Alma via the artist muse
Alma Mahler-Werfel, in which the different scenes were played
simultaneously in all rooms in the building. For this purpose, the
palace was temporarily historically reconstructed inside. In autumn
2006, the controversial exhibition "forced ways - flight and
expulsion in Europe of the 20th century" took place in the crown
prince palace.
After a comparison between the state of
Berlin, the Federal Office for Central Services and open asset
issues and the Federal Real Estate Agency of April 4, 2012, the
property remains owned by the Federal Real Estate Agency, which the
building will use from now on. The Crown Prince Palace serves, among
other things, Since 2015 as the venue for Berlin Fashion Week.