Bassenheimer Hof

The Bassenheimer Hof rises in Mainz, western Germany, as a baroque palace built in 1750. Its first role was a retirement home for the elector's widowed sister, the Countess of Bassenheim. Electoral master builder Anselm Franz von Ritter zu Groenesteyn designed it after studies in Paris. The Place Vendôme and the Hôtel de Torcy shaped that design, and you can still see the French elegance in the building today.

In 1792 the troops of Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine, invaded Mainz, and the clergy and nobility fled the city. By 1835 the palace had passed to the military government, and it served as a barracks until 1889. That conversion altered the interior layout and swept away the original gardens. Humbler uses followed after the military years, from a coffee shop to the manufacture of embroidered flags. In 1942, during the Second World War, fire left the building badly damaged. The French military government ordered its reconstruction between 1947 and 1948.

The rebuilt palace then housed the minister president of Rhineland-Palatinate for a short time. In 1960 it became the seat of the Ministry of the Interior and Sports, and it holds that role today. The rooms once planned for a widowed countess's retirement now carry the government of a German state. Through all those changes, the baroque that Groenesteyn brought back from Paris still shows in the design.