The Kronprinzenpalais (English: Crown Prince's Palace) is a former Royal Prussian residence on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic centre of Berlin. It was built in 1663 and renovated in 1857 according to plans by Heinrich Strack in Neoclassical style. From 1919 to 1937, it was home to the modern art collection of the National Gallery. Damaged during the Allied bombing in World War II, the Kronprinzenpalais was rebuilt from 1968 to 1970 by Richard Paulick as part of the Forum Fridericianum. In 1990, the German Reunification Treaty was signed in the listed building.Kronprinzenpalais (in German) Landesdenkmalamt Berlin Since then, it has been used for events and exhibitions.
Earliest uses Johann Arnold Nering created the building in 1663–69 as the private residence of Cabinet Secretary Johann Martitz, converting an existing middle-class house.Hans Reuther, Barock in Berlin: Meister und Werke der Berliner Baukunst 1640-1786, Berlin: Rembrandt, 1969, , p. 129 Paul Wietzorek, Das historische Berlin: Bilder erzählen, Petersberg: Imhof, 2005, , p. 148 From 1706 to 1732, it was the official residence of the governor of Berlin.Kronprinzenpalais , Denkmale in Berlin, Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Umwelt
Remodelling and use as a royal palace
In 1732, Philipp Gerlach remodelled the building in baroque style with a protruding central bay and a carriage drive rising to the front entrance, to serve as a residence for the Crown Prince, the future King Frederick II. He and his wife Elisabeth Christine stayed there only intermittently before his accession to the throne in 1740, after which he took up residence in part of the royal palace. He gave the Kronprinzenpalais to his brother Augustus William; after Augustus William's death in 1758, his widow continued to use it until 1780.
The building was then renovated and refurnished in Neoclassical style (with furniture from Prussia rather than France) and became the residence of Crown Prince Frederick William (the future Frederick William III) and his wife Louise, who lived there with their children and Countess Voss, who had an apartment near the entrance.Daniel Schönpflug, Luise von Preußen: Königin der Herzen; eine Biographie, Munich: Beck, 2010, , pp. 109–11 They remained there after he became king and the Palace was now called Königliches Palais (Royal Palace).Brian Ladd, The Companion Guide to Berlin, Woodbridge, Suffolk/Rochester, New York: Companion Guides/Boydell & Brewer, 2004, , p. 32. Johann Gottfried Schadow created his double statue of Crown Princess Louise and her sister Frederica, the Prinzessinnengruppe, in the palace in 1795–97. The future Emperor William I was born there on 22 March 1797.Helmut Seier, "Wilhelm I. Deutscher Kaiser (1871–1888)", in Die Kaiser der Neuzeit, 1519-1918: Heiliges Römisches Reich, Österreich, Deutschland, ed. Anton Schindling and Walter Ziegler, Munich: Beck, 1990, , , p. 395 In the early 19th century, Karl Friedrich Schinkel renovated several rooms in the palace; he also designed an extension over the Oberwallstraße connecting the palace to the Kronprinzessinnenpalais (Crown Princesses' Palace), where the king's three daughters were living; this was built in 1811 by Heinrich Gentz in association with his remodelling of the exterior of the Prinzessinenpalais.Ingrid Nowel, Berlin: die alte neue Metropole; Architektur und Kunst, Geschichte und Literatur, Dumont Kunst-Reiseführer, 6th ed. Ostfildern: DuMont, 2009, , pp. 123–24 After Louise's early death, Frederick William maintained a family shrine to her in the palace.Eva Giloi, Monarchy, Myth, and Material Culture in Germany 1750–1950, New studies in European history, Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University, 2011, , p. 54. The main building was known as the Königliches Palais (Royal Palace) until 1840; after 1840, when the king died, it was known as the former Royal Palace, and was not used by any members of the royal family; during the reign of Frederick William IV, it housed court officials, and Rudolf Lepke, who founded a major auction house, grew up there.Giloi, p. 196.
In 1856–57, Johann Heinrich Strack extensively rebuilt the palace for William I's son, Prince Frederick William (the future Kaiser Frederick III), giving it substantially its present appearance. Strack replaced the mansard roof with a third storey with Corinthian pillars, and added neo-classical details to the façade, whose columns he changed from Tuscan to Corinthian. The four statues above the entrance remained, but he added a tall columned portico surmounted by a balcony. He also built a setback addition on the east side of the building, with a colonnade on its Unter den Linden and Niederlagstraße sides. After 1861, when Frederick William's father acceded to the throne and he became Crown Prince, the building was once again known as the Kronprinzenpalais; he resided there with his wife Princess Victoria, daughter of England's Queen Victoria.
Their eldest son, who would be the last German Emperor as Wilhelm II, was born in the palace on 27 January 1859.John C. G. Röhl, "Wilhelm II. Deutscher Kaiser (1888–1918)", in Die Kaiser der Neuzeit, 1519-1918: Heiliges Römisches Reich, Österreich, Deutschland, ed. Anton Schindling and Walter Ziegler, Munich: Beck, 1990, , p. 419 Princess Victoria welcomed artists and scholars to the palace, including Heinrich von Angeli, Anton von Werner and Adolph von Menzel.Kaiserin Friedrich als Künstlerin: Künstlerische Bestrebungen am preußischen Hof in Berlin , Kaiserin Friedrich.de However, after Frederick III's death in 1888 following a 99-day reign, she was usually at her new residence, Schloß Friedrichshof, and the palace was rarely used. Beginning in 1905, it was used as a winter residence by Wilhelm II's heir, Crown Prince Wilhelm, and his wife Crown Princess Cecilie. During the November revolution in Berlin in 1918, revolutionary leaders addressed the crowd from the entrance ramp of the palace."Nach der Ausrufung der Republik in Berlin", photograph by Otto Haeckel, 9 November 1918, at German Historical Museum "Revolution in Berlin 9 November 1918" , the same picture at Wissenschaft am Abgrund: Weltkrieg und Revolution, slideshow with instructional captions.
Modern annexe of the National Gallery After the dissolution of the monarchy, the palace became a possession of the State of Prussia, which gave it to the National Gallery in 1919 to house its drawing collection.According to Giloi, p. 345, the Prinzessinnenpalais as well.Jesús Pedro Lorente, tr. Rosa Anía and Noel Murphy, The Museums of Contemporary Art: Notion and Development, Farnham / Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, 2011, , p. 112. The director, Ludwig Justi, used this annexe to the existing building (now known as the Alte Nationalgalerie) to house a new department devoted to living artists, the Galerie der Lebenden, something which he had proposed the previous year and which contemporary artists themselves had been demanding.Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Art treasures of the Berlin State Museums, New York: Abrams, 1965, , p. 65.Françoise Forster-Hahn, Spirit of an Age: Nineteenth-Century Paintings from the Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Exhibition catalogue, National Gallery, London, National Gallery of Art, Washington, London: National Gallery, 2001, , p. 55.Joan Weinstein, The End of Expressionism: Art and the November Revolution in Germany, 1918–19, Chicago: University of Chicago, 1990, , p. 85. This opened on 4 August 1919Annegret Janda, Das Schicksal einer Sammlung: Aufbau und Zerstörung der Neuen Abteilung der Nationalgalerie im ehemaligen Kronprinzen-Palais unter den Linden, 1918–1945, in association with exhibition, Nationalgalerie (East Berlin), Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Staatliche Museen (East Berlin), Berlin: Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, 1988, , p. 3 with approximately 150 paintings and sculptures including naturalistic and French Impressionist works, a sculpture by Rodin (in a room retaining the old palace décor, which also featured paintings by Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Manet), works representing both the establishment Verein Berliner Künstler and the Berlin Secession, and on the top floor in a temporary display, works by members of Die Brücke and other Expressionists.Uwe Prell, "Berlin—Bühne des Wandels—Ein Reisebericht", PhD dissertation, Free University of Berlin, Chapter 3 (pdf) p. 284 This was the first state promotion in Germany of Expressionist works, which were unpopular with large numbers of the public.Elizabeth M. Grady, "The Popular Opposition: Politicizing Modern Art in the National Gallery in Berlin, 1918–1933", in Julie F. Codell, ed., The Political Economy of Art: Making the Nation of Culture, Cranbury, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University/Associated University Presses, 2008, , p. 96. The gallery was a pioneer of the museum of contemporary art; in the judgement of the assistant director of the National Gallery at the time, the collection was superior to that of all other German galleries then collecting modern art.Stephanie Barron, Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany, Exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, New York: Abrams, 1991, , p. 116. It served as a model for later institutions, notably the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which opened two years after its first director, Alfred H. Barr Jr., visited the Kronprinzenpalais in 1927.Forster-Hahn, p. 16.Modris Eksteins, Solar Dance: Genius, Forgery and the Crisis of Truth in the Modern Age, Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2012, , n.p.: Barr wrote to the head of the National Gallery, Ludwig Justi: "Our institution seeks to fulfil the function of a Kronprinzenpalais!" On the other hand, the art critic Karl Scheffler, who favoured Impressionism and disliked Expressionism, attacked Justi for opening the contemporary art gallery, publishing a book in 1921 with the title Berliner Museumskrieg (Berlin Museum War)."Scheffler, Karl" , Dictionary of Art Historians, retrieved 27 August 2012; Karl Scheffler, Berliner Museumskrieg, Berlin: Cassirer, 1921,
After the Nazis came to power in 1933, there was an initial period of tolerance of modern art, but then Hitler ordered the galleries to be "cleansed" of it, in particular the Kronprinzenpalais.Jonathan Petropoulos, Art as Politics in the Third Reich, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1996, , p. 48: Goebbels wrote in his diary on 15 December 1935: "With the Führer at midday.... The crap must be cleansed from the Kronprinzenpalais." In May 1936, works from the Ismar Littmann collection of Expressionist art which had been confiscated by the Gestapo from a Berlin auction house were burnt in the furnace.Janda, p. 69.Anja Heuss, Das Schicksal der jüdischen Kunstsammlung von Ismar Littmann. Ein neuer Fall von Kunstraub wirft grundsätzliche Fragen auf, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 17 August 1998 (online at Kulturartikel 2 , B'nai B'rith Augustin Keller Loge, Zurich). Eberhard Hanfstaengl, the then director of the National Gallery, was ordered to set aside only a few "historically valuable" works and saved five paintings and ten drawings.Jonathan Petropoulos, The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany, New York: Oxford University, 2000, , p. 287, note 68, p. 68. The Expressionist gallery was closed in October 1936, after the Berlin Olympics had ended, as a "hotbed of cultural Bolshevism".Petropoulos, Art as Politics, pp. 60–61."Magere Schultern", Der Spiegel, 9 September 1968 Mortimer G. Davidson, Kunst in Deutschland, 1933–1945: eine wissenschaftliche Enzyklopädie der Kunst im Dritten Reich Volume 1 Skulpturen, Tübingen: Grabert, 1988, , p. 15