Kronprinzenpalais

The Kronprinzenpalais was a classical city palace on Stuttgart’s Königstraße, built between 1846 and 1850 for Crown Prince Karl by architect Ludwig Friedrich Gaab. It stood at the south-west corner of the Schlossplatz, where the Wittwer bookshop and later the Kunstmuseum were erected. The building formed the architectural counterpart to the Wilhelmspalais at the far end of the Planie, which had housed the king’s two eldest daughters. After 1918 the palace served as a trade-fair venue, then from 1930 it became part of the Staatsgalerie. War damage in 1944 and a controversial decision in 1963 led to its demolition for the Planie breakthrough. The palace’s main block stretched almost eighty metres along Königstraße, rising between nineteen and a half and twenty metres in height. Its three-wing plan included a long central tract and two shorter side wings, all clad in local sandstone with rusticated ground-floor pilasters. The main façade displayed a symmetrical rhythm of seventeen window axes, centred on a three-bay entrance with a columned porch and balcony above. Ornamental friezes, cornices and varied window surrounds marked each storey, while the roof was hidden behind a low parapet. Inside, the right-hand wing held the crown prince’s eight-room apartment on the ground floor and the crown princess’s eight-room apartment above. The left wing contained eight guest rooms on the ground floor, later used as offices, and a grand two-storey ballroom with antechambers, smaller salons and a buffet on the first floor. Two vestibules linked the wings, and a covered bridge over the side entrance connected the main building to the two-storey side block in Fürstenstraße.