Kronprinzenpalais (Berlin)

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View of the Kronprinzenpalais from Unter den Linden boulevard , 2011

The Kronprinzenpalais on the boulevard Unter den Linden 3 in the Berlin district of Mitte is a former palace of the Hohenzollern family . It was built in 1663 and was last rebuilt in 1857 by Heinrich Strack in the classicism style. In the Second World War, burned and demolished in 1961, it was from 1968 to 1970 by Richard Paulick of in a different form as a guesthouse East Berlin rebuilt magistrate. The monument was the seat of the New Department of the National Gallery in Berlin from 1919 to 1937and 1990 place of signature of the Unification Treaty . Since the reunification it has been used as an event location.

Construction and use until 1918

The Royal Palace in 1838, oil painting by Carl Daniel Freydanck
The Royal Palace in 1849, oil painting by Eduard Gaertner
Kronprinzenpalais after the renovation by Heinrich Strack in 1857

The palace was built in 1663 as the private home of the cabinet secretary Johann Martitz. From 1706 to 1732 the palace served as an official residence for the governor of Berlin . In 1732 it was converted by Philipp Gerlach into a baroque palace with an access ramp and a central risalit for the Crown Prince, who later became King Friedrich II , while the governor's seat was moved to the governor's house. Friedrich lived in the palace with his wife Elisabeth Christine only during the short stays in Berlin until his accession to the throne in 1740. He then set up an apartment in the Berlin Palace and in 1742 handed the palace over to his brother August Wilhelm (1722-1758), whose Widow used it until 1780.

After renovation and refurbishment, the Crown Prince couple Friedrich Wilhelm and Luise lived here from 1793 , the royal couple from 1797, with their children and Countess Voss (1729-1814). From 1795 to 1797, the sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow made the “ Princesses Group ” in the Kronprinzenpalais , a double statue of the princesses Luise and Friederike von Prussia . Luise gave birth to two later rulers in the palace in 1795 and 1797: King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. And Kaiser Wilhelm I. After the then unknown Karl Friedrich Schinkel had redesigned several rooms in the palace around 1809, Friedrich Wilhelm III commissioned the building. him to build a connection to the neighboring Prinzessinnenpalais , in which his three daughters then lived, to bridge Oberwallstrasse . From 1797 to 1840 the building was called the Royal Palace , after 1840 the former Royal Palace . After the death of Friedrich Wilhelm III. in 1840 no member of the royal family initially lived in the house.

In the years 1856/57 Johann Heinrich Strack fundamentally rebuilt the palace for Wilhelm's son Prince Friedrich Wilhelm . Strack replaced the original mansard roof with a third floor and covered the baroque facade, whose basic structure he retained with the colossal pilasters and the strong entablature, with classicist ornamentation and provided the entrance area with a portico with a balcony. He also built a set-back side wing to the east and surrounded it with a colonnade to the linden trees and along Niederlagstrasse. Its current appearance goes back to the renovation by Strack. The palace of Prince Frederick William was after it had become by the accession of his father Crown Prince in 1861, again Kronprinzenpalais .

On January 27, 1859, Wilhelm II , the last German Emperor , was born in a difficult birth in the palace . His mother, Crown Princess Victoria , regularly interacted with artists and scholars in the Kronprinzenpalais, including Heinrich von Angeli , Anton von Werner and Adolph von Menzel . The eastern side wing was given a number of Wilhelminian style festival rooms, including a dining room in the style of Andreas Schlueter and a classical dance hall in 1883 . After the death of Frederick III, who had only reigned as emperor for 99 days in 1888, the palace of Empress Friedrich was mostly empty because Victoria had withdrawn to her new Friedrichshof palace . It was not until the last Prussian Crown Prince Wilhelm and Crown Princess Cecilie used it in the winter months under the name Kronprinzenpalais as a Berlin residence from 1905 .

During the November Revolution of 1918, the leaders of the revolutionary movement addressed the masses from the ramp of the Kronprinzenpalais. 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 .

New department of the Nationalgalerie Berlin

The tower of the blue horses by Franz Marc was shown in the Kronprinzenpalais until 1937

Ludwig Justi set up the New Department of the National Gallery in Berlin in the Kronprinzenpalais , which could be seen here - most recently with restrictions - until 1937.

On August 4, 1919, the "Gallery of the Living" was opened. 150 paintings and sculptures by the French Impressionists as well as works by the Berlin Secession were transferred from the National Gallery to the converted palace. The Dresdner Brücke artists and other expressionists were shown on the upper floor . With this worldwide unique permanent exhibition space for modern art, Ludwig Justi created the type of museum for contemporary art that is still current today and served as a model for other museums such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York with his “experimental gallery” .

In 1933 Chancellor Adolf Hitler ordered a "purge". The development of the Kronprinzenpalais was suddenly interrupted. In May 1936, on the orders of the Gestapo, confiscated works of modern art were burned in the boiler room 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 Kronprinzenpalais, including 100 expressionist works, in order to recruit them for the Munich exhibition “ Degenerate Art ”, which opened on July 19, 1937 . In the same month, the verdict of "art of decay" was pronounced on a large part of the Expressionist paintings. This ended the glamorous days of this globally unique collection.

In 1937 the Prussian Academy of the Arts moved into the Kronprinzenpalais because it had to vacate its seat in the Palais Arnim on Pariser Platz for the general building inspector for the capital . The director of the theater , Gustaf Gründgens , also had his office temporarily in the Kronprinzenpalais.

During the Second World War , a bomb attack on March 18, 1945 destroyed the palace down to the outer walls. The ruin was removed in 1961.

Reconstruction and use since 1968

Central elevation of the Kronprinzenpalais, 2017
Memorial plaque to the Unification Treaty

In the years 1968–1970 Richard Paulick rebuilt the Kronprinzenpalais under the name Palais Unter den Linden in a form that was different from the pre-war state. He raised the side wing by one story and narrowed the balcony on the 1st floor to a window axis. The trophy decorations above the windows on the ground floor were also omitted, as were the eagle sculptures on the acanthus frieze between the 1st and 2nd floors. He also replaced the trophy jewelry above the central projection with sculptures of the gods. The interior was furnished in a modern form in line with its use as a guest house for the East Berlin magistrate .

Paulick closed the garden of the Kronprinzenpalais with the “Schinkelklause” restaurant, which is now used as a Schinkel pavilion for art exhibitions. The left bronze portal and several terracotta panels from Karl Friedrich Schinkel's building academy, which was demolished in 1962, were attached to the facade .

On December 21, 1972, a buffet was held here on the occasion of the signing of the Basic Treaty between the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany . On August 31, 1990, the Unification Treaty was signed in the Kronprinzenpalais , and the Berlin Senate took over the building.

In the years after reunification, the Kronprinzenpalais was discussed as the seat of the Federal President . However, the proposal sparked criticism because the Office of the Federal President also claimed the adjacent properties for itself. This also included the Prinzessinnenpalais , which housed the opera café. There would hardly have been a suitable replacement location for the café. When the discussion grew stronger, Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker drew a line by defining the former neighboring seat of Bellevue Palace as the first official seat of the Federal President in 1994 . During the renovation of Bellevue Palace in 2004/05, the Office of the Federal President still used the palace for state receptions.

Between 1998 and 2003, during the renovation of its main building, the armory , the German Historical Museum used the palace for temporary exhibitions that are now taking place in the newly opened extension of the museum. Even after the Historical Museum has moved out, the building will continue to be used for exhibitions and other cultural events; In 2005, for example, the large exhibition " Albert Einstein - Engineer of the Universe" was on view in the Kronprinzenpalais.

In the spring of 2006 the Kronprinzenpalais housed the interactive play “ Alma ” about the artist museum Alma Mahler-Werfel , in which the various scenes were played simultaneously in all rooms of the building. For this purpose, the interior of the palace was temporarily reconstructed. In autumn 2006, the controversial exhibition “Forced Paths - Flight and Expulsion in Europe in the 20th Century” took place in the Kronprinzenpalais.

According to a settlement between the State of Berlin, the Federal Office for Central Services and Open Property Issues and the Federal Agency for Real Estate Tasks on April 4, 2012, the property remains the property of the Federal Agency for Real Estate Tasks, which will use the building from now on as an event location. The Kronprinzenpalais will u. a. used as the venue for Berlin Fashion Week since 2015 .

literature

  • Richard Borrmann: The architectural and art monuments of Berlin. With a historical introduction by P. Clausewitz , Verlag von Julius Springer, Berlin 1893, pp. 311-313.
  • Götz Eckardt (ed.): Fates of German architectural monuments in the second world war. A documentation of the damage and total losses in the area of ​​the GDR. Volume 1: Berlin - capital of the GDR, districts Rostock, Schwerin, Neubrandenburg, Potsdam, Frankfurt / Oder, Cottbus, Magdeburg , Henschelverlag Art and Society, Berlin 1980, p. 28, with illustrations.
  • Heinrich Trost (overall editor): The architectural and art monuments in the GDR. Capital Berlin I (publisher of the Institute for the Preservation of Monuments), Henschelverlag Art and Society, Berlin 1983, pp. 150–154.
  • Nikolaus Bernau: The Kronprinzenpalais Unter den Linden: A monument to GDR modernism , in: Museumsjournal, Berlin 1999, no. 1, pp. 4–9.

Web links

Commons : Kronprinzenpalais  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/denkmal/liste_karte_datenbank/de/denkmaldatenbank/daobj.php?obj_dok_nr=09095949
  2. ↑ zeit.de, March 5, 1993: "Broad seat"
  3. ↑ When Bellevue Palace is being renovated, Johannes Rau works in the presidential office - he receives guests in the Kronprinzenpalais , in the Berliner Zeitung of July 7, 2003.
  4. ↑ Press release on bundesimmobilien.de ( Memento from August 28, 2014 in the web archive archive.today )
  5. ↑ Kronprinzenpalais: Why the location of the Fashion Week is special , Nikolaus Bernau in: Berliner Zeitung , January 16, 2018

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '2 "  N , 13 ° 23' 49"  E