Kronprinzenpalais

Kronprinzenpalais—the “Crown Prince’s Palace”—is what you might call a building with two lives. First, it served the Prussian court along Unter den Linden. Later, it became a stage for modern art politics: tolerated, then targeted, then reanimated again after wartime damage. Today, it functions as an events and exhibition venue, but its walls still record how power changed its mind.

A court residence, engineered for status

The palace began as a conversion. In 1663, Johann Arnold Nering created it in 1663–69 as the private residence of Johann Martitz, a Cabinet Secretary, by converting an existing middle-class house. From 1706 to 1732, it served as the official residence of the governor of Berlin, anchoring it as a site where administration and ceremony met. The transformation into a proper royal residence came in 1732, when Philipp Gerlach remodelled the building in baroque style. He gave it a protruding central bay and built a carriage drive that rose to the front entrance—an architectural gesture meant for arrival, not privacy. The palace then took on its “crown prince” role: it became the residence for Frederick II, the future king, and Elisabeth Christine, who stayed there only intermittently before his accession in 1740.