Anatomisches Theater der Tierarzneischule, Berlin

The Anatomical Theater of the Veterinary School is a protected historic building, created for teaching animal medicine. It is Berlin’s oldest surviving academic teaching building. Carl Gotthard Langhans designed the domed structure in 1789 and 1790, drawing on Palladio’s Rotonda.

The building’s engineering has an especially practical story: its timber dome was developed so daylight could enter through an opening in the roof, while a dissection table carrying an animal body could be raised through the floor. Christian Bernhard Rode decorated the wall spaces between the windows with grisaille scenes of rural people and animals. Teaching began here on the first of July 1790.

The building later gained an extension for autopsies and pathological study, and it was restored between 2005 and 2012. Since 2012, the Hermann von Helmholtz Centre for Cultural Techniques has used the theater for exhibitions and events. Its present purpose connects scientific research with exhibition design, so this former teaching hall now explores how displays can create and question knowledge. The dome and its unusual lifting arrangement still reveal how directly the architecture served veterinary education.