Friedrichsfelde Castle, Neoclassical castle in Lichtenberg, Germany

Friedrichsfelde Castle is a broad, symmetrical building with a pale pink and white facade, a red tiled roof and a triangular pediment filled with relief sculpture. A grey door with a small balcony, garlanded and tied with red bows, sits between two curved staircases with metal railings; a wall and moat lie in front. Inside, a long hall has a painted cloud ceiling with red and gold borders, white pilasters with gilded capitals, gold-framed striped chairs and patterned parquet.

Benjamin Raule built the first five-axis palace, probably to plans by Johann Arnold Nering, in 1685 as Rosenfelde. After Raule's fall in 1698 it passed to Elector Frederick I and was renamed Friedrichsfelde. In 1719 Martin Heinrich Böhme widened it by three axes on each side for Margrave Albert Frederick of Brandenburg-Schwedt. Peter von Biron had the ballroom redesigned in Neoclassical style, and the facade received its present form around 1800.

The upper-floor ballroom was redesigned in Neoclassical style for Peter von Biron, the exiled Duke of Courland, after he bought the palace in 1785. The Tierpark Berlin now holds regular palace concerts there, and the Standesamt Lichtenberg uses the building for civil wedding ceremonies.

The palace stands inside the Tierpark Berlin grounds, so visiting means entering the zoo; the Schloss is a short walk from the main entrance. The building is used for exhibitions, classical concerts and civil weddings, and parts can be closed during events. The surrounding park paths are unpaved in places.

Charlotte von Mahlsdorf was granted administration of the palace from 1946 to 1948, carried out repairs and housed her furniture collection there. Later, when East Berlin planned its own zoo in 1954, the building briefly served as the organisers' office and parts of it were used as stables. Director Heinrich Dathe then blocked demolition plans and pushed through the renovation between 1970 and 1981.