Wangenheim Palace (german: Wangenheimpalais) is a building in the

Mitte Mitte () is the first and most central borough of Berlin. The borough consists of six sub-entities: Mitte proper, Gesundbrunnen, Hansaviertel, Moabit, Tiergarten and Wedding. It is one of the two boroughs (the other being Friedrichshain-Kreuzb ...

district of

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

, the capital of

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

, Germany. From 1863 to 1913, it was the

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

and seat of the city's administration. Today it is the seat of the Lower Saxon Ministry of Economic Affairs.

History

The palace was built in the years 1829–1832 to plans by the Hanoverian court builder

Georg Ludwig Friedrich Laves Georg Ludwig Friedrich Laves (17 December 1788 – 30 April 1864) was a German architect, civil engineer and urban planner. Born in Uslar, Lower Saxony, he lived and worked primarily in the city of Hanover and also died there. He was appointed ...

Georg Moller Georg Moller (21 January 1784 – 13 March 1852) was an architect and a town planner who worked in the South of Germany, mostly in the region today known as Hessen. Life and family background Moller was born in Diepholz, a descendant of an old ...

is believed to have had an advisory role in the design of the building. Georg Christian von Wangenheim commissioned the construction of building and used it as a residence until his death. A

winter garden A winter garden is a kind of garden maintained in wintertime. History The origin of the winter garden dates back to the 17th to 19th centuries where European nobility would construct large conservatories that would house tropical and subtro ...

was also added to the building by Laves in 1844. In 1851,

George V of Hanover en, George Frederick Alexander Charles Ernest Augustus , house = Hanover , religion = Protestant , father = Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover , mother = Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz , birth_date = 27 May 1819 , ...

ascended the throne. Subsequently, the building was acquired by the crown and made into a residence palace. George V lived in the palace for a period of ten years. In 1862, the building was acquired by the City of Hanover, which hired Ludwig Droste to oversee a reconstruction project for the building. The following year, the city administration left the

Old Town Hall Old or OLD may refer to: Places * Old, Baranya, Hungary * Old, Northamptonshire, England *Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, ...

and moved into the palace. It was used as the town hall and seat of the city administration until 1913, when the town hall moved into the newly created New Town Hall diagonally opposite from the palace. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the palace was destroyed in one of the air raids on Hanover in 1943. It burned down, but was rebuilt a few years later and used for city purposes. After the demolition of the old water mill, which had been in use since the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, the city coat of arms from the mill was installed in the gable of the facade of the Wangenheim Palace. The Lower Saxon Ministry of Economic Affairs has used the palace as its headquarters since 1957. From 1994 to 2013, there was a bus stop opposite the palace designed by Italian designer

Massimo Iosa Ghini Massimo Iosa Ghini (born 18 June 1959) is an Italian architect, designer and professor known for pioneering the Bolidist Movement, and for his involvement with the Memphis Group featuring others architects including Ettore Sottsass, Michael ...

in the shape of a sailboat, which was a part of the BUSSTOPS art project. This was moved to the opposite side of the street in front of the August Kestner Museum in 2013.

Gallery

External links

Description of the Wangenheim Palace
from the Lower Saxony Ministry of Economic Affairs

Short description
from hannover.de

References

{{morecat, date=August 2023 1829 establishments Buildings and structures in Hanover Culture of Lower Saxony Government buildings completed in 1832 Palaces in Lower Saxony Rebuilt buildings and structures in Germany