Palais am Festungsgraben

The Palais am Festungsgraben stands in Berlin’s Mitte district, behind the chestnut-lined Neue Wache near the eastern end of Unter den Linden. Built beside a filled-in moat that once surrounded the 17th-century city wall, the building was originally a private residence before becoming a government office. After the Second World War it housed Soviet cultural institutions, then served the GDR’s German-Soviet friendship organisations. Since reunification it has been home to a theatre and an art gallery. The palace began in 1751 when King Friedrich II gave the land to his valet Johann Gottfried Donner. Court architect Friedrich Feldmann designed the three-storey building, which included a grand hall for public events and a rented apartment for the Prussian mint administrator. After Donner’s death the Prussian Finance Ministry bought the palace, raising one wing in 1797 and later installing Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein as a resident. In the 1860s architects Georg Heinrich Bürde and Hermann von der Hude created a series of interconnected rooms on the main floor. Today the ground floor holds the 99-seat Theater im Palais, while the first upper storey shows contemporary art in the Saarländische Galerie. The building’s restored interiors include Schinkel-designed details from the demolished Weydinger House and a grand staircase added in the 19th century. Visitors walk past the former ministerial suites and the Soviet-era House of Culture rooms before stepping into the small theatre or the gallery’s changing exhibitions. The site links Berlin’s royal past with its divided and reunited present.