Old Palace Berlin

Langhans erected the building between 1834 and 1837 in the Neoclassical style. It has 13 window axes facing the street with a covered portico-like driveway, is two stories high, and has a mezzanine floor, adorned with a continuous terracotta frieze featuring 18 figures and 16 coats of arms. Eagles soar at the corners. Towards Opernplatz, it received a green pergola. In the lower floor of the left part of the building, facing the street and a green inner courtyard, were Wilhelm's living and working rooms, and on the upper floor, Augusta's, connected by an intimate spiral staircase. In the central part were the vestibule, the representative staircase, and social rooms upstairs. In the right part, which extended as a much longer side wing along Oranische Gasse to Behrenstraße, were festive rooms, including the large circular ballroom. Towards Behrenstraße, around a second inner courtyard, were service and living quarters for staff, horse stables, and a coach house. In daily operation, the entrance on the narrow Oranische Gasse served as the main entrance and driveway.

For fifty years, in the months between the end of the autumn maneuvers in October and the spring parades in March, the palace was the residence and official seat of Wilhelm, who rose to Prince of Prussia in 1840, Regent in 1858, King of Prussia in 1861, and German Emperor in 1871. During the days of the March Revolution of 1848, when popular anger had driven Wilhelm out of Berlin, it escaped looting and devastation because well-wishers declared it national property. In the late 1850s, it became one of the most important venues of political life in the Prussian state, culminating in the unification of the empire in 1871. At the same time, it was the place where Wilhelm fulfilled his obligations as head of the Hohenzollern family and a member of the European high nobility. Every Thursday, Augusta filled the rooms with a company of renowned artists and scholars. Heinrich Strack re-equipped the building in 1854 to meet increased representational demands. In 1882, Wilhelm acquired the Dutch Palace as a guesthouse and connected both buildings with a glazed passage over Oranische Gasse.

The palace became one of Berlin's most significant sights. Wilhelm always appeared at the corner window of his study to observe the grand changing of the guard at the New Guardhouse diagonally opposite at noon. This regularly recurring event was mentioned in travel guides from the 1870s onwards and attracted numerous spectators.

With great public participation, Wilhelm I died in his palace on March 9, 1888. Subsequently, the corner window was permanently draped. After Empress Augusta also died here two years later, the house was made accessible to the public as a memorial to the imperial couple. After 1918, it remained the property of the Hohenzollern family. During the Nazi era, the name Old Palace became common instead of Emperor Wilhelm Palace.

The legend that the palace contained no bathroom, so that a bathtub had to be carried into the palace for Wilhelm from the opposite Hotel de Rome by two hotel servants upon request, is considered ineradicable. To this, Oberhofbaurat Albert Geyer remarked that a bathtub had been in Augusta's apartment from the beginning, which Wilhelm could reach via the spiral staircase. Only in 1885 did Wilhelm receive his own bathtub, which he, however, did not use.

The palace suffered internal destruction by fire in 1943 during World War II due to a bombing raid, while its exterior, including facade ornamentation, balcony, and pergola, remained intact. According to Ludwig Justi's wish, an exhibition "Reunion with Museum Goods" held in December 1946 in the Berlin City Palace was to be followed by another in the Old Palace, and its reconstruction was intended until the 1950s. However, the palace, expropriated without compensation by the Soviet occupation forces in 1945 and later owned by Humboldt University, decayed for two decades down to its outer walls.

Together with the Old Library, the palace was rebuilt in 1963-64. Fritz Meinhardt renovated the street facade of the Old Palace, which had been gutted down to its load-bearing walls, in the forms of 1837, while altering the floor plan and partly the room heights. The pergola and the eagles at the building corners were removed as too clear reminders of Emperor Wilhelm I. The rear part of the building, which had contained the large halls, and the buildings on Behrenstraße were demolished and replaced by prefabricated buildings. As a result of the overbuilding of Oranische Gasse with the house Unter den Linden 11, the palace is no longer freestanding towards the street. The modern institute buildings are connected internally.

Between May 2003 and August 2005, the Berlin Monument Protection Foundation renovated the building, and its Neoclassical facade was restored to its original appearance. In October 2007, the restoration of the pergola was completed.