Babelsberg Palace and Park

For more than 50 years Babelsberg Palace was the summer residence of Kaiser William I and his wife Augusta. Even as a prince William had wanted to turn this area of land by the Tiefer See into a garden and have a summer palace built on it. In 1833 his father King Frederick William III granted his wish, and Prince William and Princess Augusta immediately commissioned the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel to design a palace in the English Gothic Revival style. Schinkel had visited England a few years beforehand and come across a number of Gothic castles and parks there. Augusta in particular was deeply interested in this style of architecture and developed her own notions of what her palace was to look like. To comply with the royal couple’s wishes, Schinkel was forced to alter his designs several times. In 1835 the Palace was finally inaugurated, though only the first part of it. Five years later, William was appointed Crown Prince and thus became the heir to the throne. The Palace was now too small to fulfil the necessary official and ceremonial functions...