Embassy of the People's Republic of China, Bonn, Former Chinese diplomatic mission in Bad Godesberg, Germany.
The building at Kurfürstenallee 12 displays formal diplomatic architecture within the residential district of Bad Godesberg. It was part of the international network of missions that shaped the city during its period as Germany's capital.
After diplomatic relations with West Germany began in 1972, China opened its Bonn embassy in February 1973 in a rented former hotel in Niederbachem. The 1.2-hectare Schloss Rigal site was acquired by late 1973; construction of three new office buildings began in July 1982, and the keys were handed to ambassador An Zhiyuan on 20 June 1984. The embassy moved to Berlin in November 1999, and since spring 2015 the site again houses a branch office.
The complex includes a Chinese teahouse set in its roughly 12,000 m² garden, and the three 1982–84 office buildings are grouped around five inner courtyards with pagoda-style roofs of glazed tiles imported from China. Since 2015 the site has again served as a branch of the embassy, used for conferences and cultural events.
The complex sits in Alt-Godesberg at the corner of Kurfürstenallee 12 and Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 59, facing the Rigal'sche Wiese and closing the south end of the Kurfürstliche Zeile. The grounds are enclosed and the buildings serve as an embassy branch office, so they are not open to the public; the pagoda roofs and the 1849 Schloss Rigal can be seen from the street.
The building shows how many countries maintained their missions in Bonn simultaneously before the capital relocated. Today it recalls the brief period when this small city was Germany's diplomatic center.
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