The building of the Ephraim Palais was commissioned by court jeweller and coin dealer Veitel Heine Ephraim and erected between 1762 and 1766. One distinctive feature is the rounded corner facing Mühlendamm; it connects the structure’s two wings as they meet at an obtuse angle. The chosen architect, director of building Friedrich Wilhelm Diterichs, conceived a striking vertical division of the four-storey rococo facade with its Tuscan pillars and domed pilasters. Balconies with putto sculptures and gilt railings lend a decorative lightness to the exterior. As a consequence, the palais earned its popular name as “the most beautiful corner of Berlin” soon after building.

It came into the city’s possession as early as 1843 and was used, among other things, as a registry office. Dismantled in 1936 to enable the widening of Mühlendamm, the building was reconstructed close to its original site for Berlin’s 750^th anniversary celebrations in 1987. Parts of the old facade were used; the West Berlin side had made them available to the GDR in exchange for other cultural assets. The bright, oval stairwell was reconstructed inside; its flights of stairs climbing in an elegantly curving spiral and the majestic open well are among the high points of rococo interior design in Berlin. The representative rooms on the ground and first floors were oriented on the taste of the period of original building but equipped for utilisation as an exhibition area. In addition, one of the rooms was furnished with a copy of the so-called Schlüter ceiling dating from around 1700, which had belonged to the Wartenberg’sches Palais, demolished in 1889.

As from May 1987, the building was first used as exhibition space by the Märkisches Museum, founded in 1874. In addition to the Ephraim Palais, the foundation “Municipal Museum Berlin” (Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin) founded in 1995 as the State Museum for the Culture and History of Berlin (Landesmuseum für die Kultur und Geschichte Berlins) includes the Märkisches Museum, the Nikolai Church, the Knoblauchhaus, the Collection of Youth and Childhood (Sammlung Kindheit und Jugend) and the open-air museum Museumsdorf Düppel. There are plans to extend the Märkisches Museum into the neighbouring Marinehaus as from 2012, so creating a central location for the Municipal Museum.

To access the Municipal Museum’s website, click here.

The building of today’s Kleist Museum at 7 Faberstraße, Frankfurt (Oder) was planned in 1777 as a garrison school on the initiative of Prince Leopold von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel and constructed by Frankfurt building inspector Friedrich Martin Knoblauch at a cost of 3,000 thalers. On 26^th January 1778, it opened as a free school for the children of soldiers stationed in the city. The school, in which teaching followed the principles of Reckahn country school as established by philanthropist Eberhard von Rochow, was closed down in the 1920s.

After serving various purposes, the building was converted to house the Kleist Museum in 1968/69. Following complete restoration and modernisation of the interior for use as a museum, the former garrison school – which was opened officially as the “Kleist Memorial and Research Centre” on 20th September 1969 – now provides space for circa 50 visitors.

The building attained its present state in the course of conversion measures in 1999/2000, when the exhibition that had been in place since 1977 was also redesigned to create today’s permanent exhibition. Comprising a collection of more than 34,000 items, the Kleist Museum – which combines the missions of a literature museum, a research institute and a literary centre – has the biggest collection on Kleist and associated literary history in the world. In addition, the museum is also responsible for the legacies of poets Ewald Christian and Franz Alexander von Kleist, as well as Friedrich and Caroline de la Motte Fouqué. In the garden of the museum there are three-dimensional works evidencing the keen interest in Heinrich von Kleist’s work shown by important sculptors such as Wieland Förster or Werner Stötzer. In addition to a copy of Heinrich von Kleist’s gravestone, a reproduction of Ulrike von Kleist’s burial cross and the gravestone commemorating Christian Ernst Martini have also been erected here.

To access the home page of the Kleist Museum, please click here.