Museum Ephraim-Palais

Located in Berlin’s Nikolaiviertel, Museum Ephraim-Palais presents exhibitions on Berlin’s history and culture within a reconstructed Rococo palace.

Planning your visit

The Ephraim-Palais is a rococo palace that was demolished, stored, and rebuilt in the wrong place — and that history is more interesting than most of what it now contains. Built in 1762 for Veitel Heine Ephraim, court jeweller and mint master to Frederick the Great, it was widely called the most beautiful corner of Berlin. In 1935 it was dismantled for street widening and its ornamental facade elements were stored, eventually ending up in West Berlin. In the 1980s East Germany rebuilt the palace in the Nikolaiviertel, a few dozen metres from its original site, using those original components returned across the Wall in an unusual Cold War exchange.

The interior is the draw, particularly the oval staircase with its wrought-iron balustrade. The museum, part of the Stadtmuseum Berlin, uses the rooms for changing exhibitions on the city's history, culture and art rather than a fixed permanent display, so what is on show varies considerably — worth checking before a special trip.

The Nikolaiviertel around it is itself a reconstruction, a medieval quarter rebuilt by the GDR for Berlin's 750th anniversary, mixing salvaged buildings with prefabricated approximations, which makes the whole area an exercise in how cities decide to remember themselves.

Bookable options include family tours of Berlin history staged in the palace and pitched at children. Current availability is shown below.