Museum Barberini is a reproduction of a reproduction. Potsdam copied Rome’s Palazzo Barberini in 1772 as a residence. The copy lasted until the night of 14 April 1945, when British bombers flattened much of the town centre. In 2017, private donors brought it back, and it now houses an art museum with changing exhibitions.
It stands on the Old Market Square, where East Germany’s government set about erasing royal Potsdam. The palace and its Fortuna Gate took 18 detonations to bring down in 1960. Next door, the rebuilt Palazzo Pompei keeps three original masks above its windows. They’re the darker ones.
VoiceMap’s self-guided audio tours use the square to explain what the bombs and the Communists removed and what reunified Potsdam chose to rebuild, from the obelisk whose kings were swapped for architects to a palace wearing a sign that reads “Ceci n’est pas un château.”