Palais am Festungsgraben

Built as a private residence, it later housed a succession of Prussian government offices, and after World War II various cultural institutions in the Soviet sector of Berlin.

The attic was used to store and air bulk grain, and at the back of the lot Donner laid out a garden with an underground cold storage room (Eiskeller) and a carriage house, using the remaining space to run a flourishing trade in timber.

In 1863-1864 the building was altered according to plans by the architects Georg Heinrich Bürde and Hermann von der Hude, who redesigned the main staircase and laid out a sequence of several prestigious interconnected rooms on the bel étage.

The hall was of high artistic value, being the only remaining example of interior decoration by the prominent Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, who had designed the banquet room of this private residence in 1830.

Since its founding in 1991 the 99-seat, innovative Theater im Palais has been located on the ground floor, and in September 2004 the federal state of Saarland rented 200 square meters of exhibition space in the palace for an art gallery, the Saarländische Galerie, featuring work by contemporary artists from the Czech Republic, France, Luxemburg, and Belgium as well as from Saarland and Berlin.