Berlin Palace

Berlin, Germany

No longer standing

Demolished or destroyed.

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The Berlin Palace, a monumental château in Berlin's Mitte district adjacent to the Cathedral and Museum Island, served as the principal residence of the Electors of Brandenburg, Kings of Prussia, and German Emperors from 1443 to 1918. Expanded between 1689 and 1713 under Frederick I of Prussia according to designs by Andreas Schlüter, it became celebrated as a major work of Prussian Baroque architecture. The palace commanded the Berlin skyline with its distinctive 60-meter-high dome, completed in 1845. After World War II bombing damage and the 1918 revolution, the building fell into disrepair and was demolished by East German authorities in 1950. A modernist Palace of the Republic was erected on the site, but was itself torn down in 2009. Beginning in 2013, architect Franco Stella oversaw the palace's exterior reconstruction to house the Humboldt Forum museum, combining historicist and modernist elements throughout, with the project substantially completed by 2020.