Schloss Bellevue: The President's Palace
Why is it significant?
Through the railings you can see a long, white, elegant palace with a columned centre and two wings reaching forward like open arms. Glance up at the roof.
Key Facts
| Place | Schloss Bellevue: The President's Palace |
|---|---|
| Address | Spreeweg 1, 10557 Berlin, Germany |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.51730, 13.35240 |
| Part of Walk | Glass Dome and Golden Angel: Berlin's Reichstag, Tiergarten & Victory Column |
| Generated | Generated |
Through the railings you can see a long, white, elegant palace with a columned centre and two wings reaching forward like open arms. Glance up at the roof. If a flag is flying there, the German Federal President is in Berlin... this is Schloss Bellevue, the president's official seat, and the name means exactly what it promises: beautiful view, over the bend of the river.
It was built in 1786 for Prince August Ferdinand of Prussia, the youngest brother of Frederick the Great. Compared with the Baroque palaces of the time it is strikingly plain, clean lines, no gilded excess, one of the early examples of the neoclassical taste that would soon spread across Berlin. The prince wanted a summer house on the edge of the royal park, close enough to court, far enough to breathe.
The palace has lived several lives. In the 1930s it housed a museum of German folk culture, and from 1938 the Nazi government turned it into a guest house for foreign state visitors. In 1945 it was badly damaged in the fighting for the Tiergarten. After the war it was restored, and from 1959 West Germany's presidents used it as their Berlin residence, while the real capital was still Bonn. Since 1994 it has been the president's principal seat.
Behind the palace, partly hidden in the trees, there is a strange black oval building, polished and dark like a pebble. That is the Bundespräsidialamt, the president's office, opened in 1998. And the park around you is not just decoration: the gardens of Bellevue still follow the idea of an English landscape garden, with lawns opening onto the water and trees placed to frame the views, as if nature had arranged itself.
Close by, to the west, lies the Englischer Garten, laid out after the war with help from Britain when the whole Tiergarten had to be replanted from almost nothing. But you will hear that story a little later. Now walk south along Spreeweg, and in a few minutes you will see a golden figure flashing above the trees.