page_title: Palais Strousberg
section_title: Upper floor
hierarchical_section_title: Palais Strousberg / Description of the building / Upper floor
context_page_description: The Palais Strousberg was a large city mansion built in Berlin, Germany for the railway magnate Bethel Henry Strousberg. It was designed by the architect August Orth and built between 1867–68 at No.70 Wilhelmstraße. The grandiose splendour of its accommodation and novel integration of the latest building technologies into the fabric of the building, ensured that Berliners would still find the Palais impressive decades after its construction, becoming the model of refined luxury in Berlin architecture.
  After the Strousberg family's bankruptcy in 1875, the building was rented to the embassy of Great Britain and Ireland who eventually purchased the property in 1884. Following World War II Wilhelmstraße was partitioned into the East German sector of Berlin in 1948. The Palais, which had been severely damaged during the war, was demolished in the 1950s.
context_section_description: The upper floor contained the sleeping accommodation, lavatories, bathrooms, dressing rooms and children's rooms for the large Strousberg family. The central hot water system, a feature which only a handful of buildings in Berlin in the late 1860s possessed, was an indication of the building's modernity. Examples of the luxurious, but classically inspired interior decoration can be seen in the designs for the bathroom, where Roman Pompeii style wall paintings graced the walls (right). The more senior domestic staff – the nanny and governess – were also housed on the upper floor.
caption: August Orth's designs for the wall and ceiling decoration of the bathroom based upon studies of Pompeii[15]
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