Hohenzollern Castle
The current castle was built by Hohenzollern scion Crown-Prince Frederick William IV of Prussia. Traveling through southern Germany en route to Italy in 1819 he wished to learn about his family's roots, so climbed to the top of Mount Hohenzollern. He would write in 1844 as King:
He engaged Friedrich August Stüler, who had been appointed Architect of the King for the rebuilding of Stolzenfels Castle in 1842 while still a student and heir of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, to design a new castle. Stüler began work on an ornate design influenced by English Gothic Revival architecture and the Châteaux of the Loire Valley in 1846. The impressive entryway is the work of the Engineer-Officer Moritz Karl Ernst von Prittwitz, considered the leading fortifications engineer in Prussia. The sculptures around and inside the castle are the work of Gustav Willgohs. Like Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, Hohenzollern Castle is a monument to German Romanticism which incorporated an idealized vision of a medieval knight's castle. Lacking some of the fantastic elements and excesses of Neuschwanstein, the castle's construction served to enhance the reputation of the Prussian Royal Family.
Humboldt Box
The Humboldt Box was built as an information centre about plans for a future palace, a viewing platform for its construction site, and a temporary exhibition space for the future tenants. The idea came from a similar structure at Potsdamer Platz, the "Visitor Box on Stilts", which stood at the site of a large construction project there from 1995 to 2001. Hoping to repeat the success of the bright red "box on stilts", which served as an information centre and attracted some nine million visitors, the Friends of the Berlin City Palace and their supporters proposed the Humboldt Box to "win the hearts" of Berliners to the costly and ambitious plan to rebuild the "Stadtschloss" (Berlin City Palace). Used by Hohenzollern Prussian kings and German Emperors, the imperial palace suffered extensive damage in World War II and was razed in 1950 by the East German government.