The Berlin Palace (German: Berliner Schloss), formerly known as the Royal Palace (German: Königliches Schloss), is a large building adjacent to Berlin Cathedral and the Museum Island in the Mitte area of Berlin. It was the main residence of the Electors of Brandenburg, Kings of Prussia and German Emperors from 1443 to 1918. Expanded by order of Frederick I of Prussia according to plans by Andreas Schlüter from 1689 to 1713, it was thereafter considered a major work of Prussian Baroque architecture. The royal palace became one of Berlin’s largest buildings and shaped the cityscape with its 60-meter-high (200 ft) dome erected in 1845.
Used for various government functions after the abolition of the Hohenzollern monarchy in the 1918 revolution, the palace was damaged during the Allied bombing in World War II, and was razed to the ground by the East German authorities in 1950. In the 1970s, the East German authorities erected a modernist parliamentary and cultural center on the site, known as the Palace of the Republic. After German reunification in 1990, and years of debate, particularly regarding the fraught historical legacy of both buildings, the Palace of the Republic was itself demolished in 2009.
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