The old palace (formerly: Kaiser-Wilhelm-Palais) is a monument on the boulevard Unter den Linden 9 in the Mitte and part of the Fridericianum Forum. Builded from Carl Ferdinand Langhans in the style of classicism from 1834 to 1837 as a place of residence for Prince Wilhelm von Preußen, the later Emperor Wilhelm I, turned to the museum building in 1890. Burned out in the Second World War, the old palace was rebuilt in 1963/1964. Since then it has been home to the legal faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin.
On the site of the old palace, the town house built between 1688 and
1692 by Ernst Bernhard von Weyler, the head of the Kurbrandenburg
artillery. His son Christian Ernst, who moved to Vienna, sold it to
Margrave Philipp Wilhelm von Brandenburg-Schwedt. His descendant
Margrave Friedrich Wilhelm had Christian Ludwig Hildebrandt converted it
into a baroque palace. The refusal of the margraves to sell their palace
for the creation of King Frederick II programmatic forum Fridericianum
led to the failure of the original plans. When Friedrich took up work on
a very reduced version of his forum in 1774, the garden and the rear
building of the palace had to give way to the new building of the royal
library.
The heirs of Margrave Friedrich Wilhelm von
Brandenburg-Schwedt sold the building, which had previously been called
Markgräflich-Schwedsche Palais, for 25,000 thaler to Otto Friedrich von
Bredow (1726–1799) on Senzke and Haage. It is not known in which year
Otto Friedrich von Bredow acquired the Palais.
In 1817, Graf
Tauentzien acquired from Wittenberg, governor of Berlin and head of III.
Army corps the house to use it as a home and office seat. Prince Wilhelm
became his successor in 1825, but only moved into the palace after his
marriage to Augusta von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach in 1829.
The
Prussian crown prince Friedrich Wilhelm, however, planned a redesign of
the Frederizian forum into a monument facility for Friedrich the Great.
For this purpose, his favorite architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel
intended the demolition of the Royal Library and the Margravial Palace
for the purpose of creating an extensive second -towered palace for
Prince Wilhelm. However, this was not agreed with the plan for cost
reasons and because of what he believes without a pious demolition of
the baroque library. He preferred a much more modest design by the
Wroclaw architect Carl Ferdinand Langhans. Langhans solved the task of
building a representative city palace on the limited property on the
limited property, willingly supported by Schinkel, in a generally
recognized, elegant way.
Langhans built the building in the classicist style from 1834 to
1837. It has 13 window axes with a covered portic -like right of way
with all -round eagle fries, is two floors high and has a mezzanine
floor, decorated by an all -round terracotta jar with 18 figures and 16
coat of arms. Adler fly on the corners. It received a green pergola
towards the opera place. On the lower floor of the left part of the
building, the living and work rooms of Wilhelm, in the upper Augustas,
were connected by an intimate spiral staircase. In the middle part there
were the vestibule, the representative staircase and social areas above.
In the right part, which extended as a much longer side wing on the
Oranian alley to Behrenstrasse, there were fixed rooms, including the
large circular dance hall. The staff, horse stables and a coache were
available towards Behrenstraße around a second courtyard. In everyday
operation, the entrance on the narrow Oranian alley served as the main
entrance and right of way.
The palace was in the months between
the end of the autumn maneuvers in October and the spring parades in
March the Berlin residence and office, which, from 1840 Prince of
Prussia, to the regent, 1861 to King of Prussia and 1871 Emperor ascent.
In the days of the March Revolution of 1848, when the Volkszorn Wilhelm
from Berlin had driven out, it escaped the looting and devastation
because well -meaning declared it to be national property. In the late
1850s, it became one of the most important locations in political life
in the Prussian state, which reached the climax in 1871 with the Reich.
At the same time, it was the place where Wilhelm perceived his
commitments as head of the Hohenzollern house and relatives of the
European High. On Thursday, Augusta filled the rooms with a company of
well -known artists and scholars. Heinrich Strack re -established the
building in 1854 in accordance with the increased representation claims.
Wilhelm acquired the Dutch palace as a guest house in 1882 and combined
both buildings through a glazed walk over the Oranian alley.
In
the imperial era, the Palais developed into one of the most important
sights in Berlin. Wilhelm always appeared on the "historic corner
window" of his study on the ground floor to watch the waking up under
the linden trees on the slanted new guard at noon. The regular recurring
event has been mentioned in travel guides since the 1870s and attracted
numerous spectators. It has been handed down that Wilhelm even
interrupted an important meeting for observing the waking up:
"The
guard comes, I have to go to the window! The people are waiting for my
greeting - that's how it says in the Baedeker! "
- Kaiser Wilhelm I.
The legend that the palace did not contain a bathroom is considered
to be in herbalance, so that "for Wilhelm a bathtub from the opposite
Hotel de Rome had to be worn by two hotels to the palace". The
Oberhofbaurat Albert Geyer noticed that it was a tub in Augusta from the
start that Wilhelm could reach via the spiral staircase. It was only in
1885 that Wilhelm received his own bathroom pool, which he did not use.
Wilhelm I died in his palace on March 9, 1888 with great public
sympathy. The corner window was then imposed forever. After Empress
Augusta also died here two years later, it was made accessible to the
public as a museum location for the imperial couple. According to the
Treaty with the Free State of Prussia, the Hohenzollern house was owned
by the distribution of its assets of October 6, 1926. In the period of
National Socialism, the name of the old palace prevailed instead of
Kaiser-Wilhelm-Palais.
The palace suffered a destruction of the interior in 1943 during
the Second World War due to a bomb attack, while its appearance,
including facade decorations, oldan and pergola, was preserved.
The exhibition "Reunion with Museumsgut", which was organized in
the Berlin city palace in December 1946, was to follow another in
ancient Palais, according to Ludwig Justis, and his reconstruction
was intended until the 1950s. However, the palace, which was
expropriated without compensation in 1945 by the Soviet occupying
powers and later owned by the Humboldt University, fell to the outer
walls for two decades.
Together with the old library, the
palace was rebuilt from 1963 to 1964. Fritz Meinhardt renovated the
street facade of the old palace, which was caught up to the load
-bearing walls, in the forms of 1837 when changing the floor plan
and partly the room heights. The Pergola and the eagles on the
building corners were removed as too clear memories of Kaiser
Wilhelm I. The rear part of the building, which had contained the
large halls, and the development on Behrenstrasse were demolished
and replaced by prefabricated buildings. As a result of the
development of the Oranian alley with the house Unter den Linden 11,
the palace is no longer free to the street. The modern institute
buildings, which have been taking up the Faculty of Law of the
Humboldt University in Berlin since the reconstruction, are
connected inside.
Between May 2003 and August 2005, the
Berlin Foundation renovated the building and gave the classicist
facade back the original version. Until 2008, the Recovery of the
Pergola was also completed.