BERLIN, Germany — Germany’s official presidential palace, Schloss Bellevue, has opened its historic state rooms to the public for the first time as a contemporary art exhibition, weeks before the building closes for a multi-year restoration.
The exhibition, titled Freiraum Kunst, features more than twenty members of the Akademie der Künste, who are showing their work in rooms already cleared ahead of the palace’s imminent closure. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier inaugurated the show at a vernissage on the evening of 13 June.
Steinmeier as miniature, a presidential successor as painting
The works are as varied as the empty rooms allow. Bjørn Melhus fills one space with a nocturnal SOS light installation. Karin Sander contributes a 36-centimetre figurine of Steinmeier himself. El Bocho’s painting carries the title Die Bundespräsidentin — a deliberate provocation, given that Steinmeier’s successor, to be elected on 30 January 2027, could be the first woman to hold the office.
Free entry, but tickets sell out fast
The exhibition runs until 28 June. Entry is free, but visitors must book a timed slot in advance at freiraum-kunst.eu. Tickets sold out within hours of the Saturday opening.
Costly restoration
The scale of the renovation explains why the palace needed clearing in the first place. The Federal President’s Office has confirmed a baseline construction budget of €601 million, with an additional €188 million reserve for unforeseen risks and €71 million set aside for rising construction costs, bringing the total to at least €860 million.
The work covers four areas: the palace itself, the adjoining administrative building, a new main guardhouse and technical centre, and renewal of the technical infrastructure. The renovation is necessary due to structural and technical deficiencies accumulated over decades: a leaking roof, malfunctioning ventilation systems, windows that meet neither break-in nor ballistic standards, cracks in the facade, and corrosion in the floor structures.
The presidential office relocates this summer to a temporary base in Elisabeth-Abegg-Straße in Berlin-Moabit. With completion scheduled for 2034, Steinmeier’s successor will spend their entire five-year term in the interim quarters. The restored palace will operate on a near climate-neutral basis.
A neoclassical palace with 240 years of history
Prince August Ferdinand of Prussia commissioned Schloss Bellevue in 1785; the youngest brother of Frederick the Great wanted a summer residence on the edge of the Tiergarten. Completed in 1786, it became the first Neoclassical building in Germany. After serving as a royal residence until 1918 and surviving heavy bomb damage in the Second World War, the palace reopened in 1959 as the Berlin seat of the Federal President. It has held that role as principal official residence since 1994, when the German government relocated from Bonn to Berlin. The last major renovation took place in 2004 and 2005.
More info & tickets: https://freiraum-kunst.eu/de/event/ticketbuchung
Source: rbb24
