Palais Schaumburg, Government palace in Gronau district, Bonn, Germany
Palais Schaumburg is a late neoclassical building in Bonn's Gronau district, near the Rhine. Its white facades have rows of rectangular windows, a steep dark grey roof with a small domed tower, and an L-shaped wing around a paved courtyard. A projecting left section with an entrance stairway leads to a raised terrace.
A cloth manufacturer commissioned the villa between 1858 and 1860, and it changed hands several times afterward. Following World War II, the building served as the main seat of the West German government from 1949 to 1976.
The name comes from Prince Adolf of Schaumburg-Lippe, who bought the villa in 1894 and married Princess Viktoria of Prussia that same year. In 1927 Viktoria married the Russian impostor Alexander Zoubkoff in the Red Salon, later the cabinet room; the family then revoked her residence right and auctioned the furnishings in 1929.
The palais is not publicly accessible; since August 2013 it has been closed for building restoration. The Haus der Geschichte normally arranges guided tours of the historical rooms, and during the closure it offers an online panorama tour showing the exhibition rooms and three exterior views of the building and park.
A modern single-story building called Kanzlerbungalow has stood on the grounds since 1963 and served some heads of government as a residence. The ensemble combines classical architecture with functional postwar design in a compact space.
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