KASSEL 
Sightseeing

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Wilhelmshöhe and Schloß Wilhelmshöhe.
At the top of Wilhelmshöher Allee, designed in 1781, stands the magnificent Wilhelmshöhe palace and park.The Wilhelmshöhe hillside park, crowned by the city’s landmark, the Octogon with  the statue of Hercules, is world-famous. From here an unforgettable view of the city and the parks of Kassel  can be had.
The palace was designed by Simon Louis du Ry and Heinrich Christoph Jussow. It was built between 1795 and 1801 for the Elector Wilhelm. The palace is home to the "Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister" (Picture gallery of Old Masters) where paintings by Rubens, Titian, Rembrandt, Durer and Poussin can be admired.
The park is a unique composition of botanical treasures and architectural creations, art and nature in perfect harmony. The leaping waters of the cascades and finally the fountains in the palace lake sending up jets of water high into the sky have always attracted large crowds of visitors.

Karlsaue Baroque Park with Orangery and Siebenbergen island of flowers.
The Orangerie is the central building of the Karlsaue and hosts the Museum fur Astronomie und Technikgeschichte (Museum of Astronomy and Technical History) as well as the planetarium of Kassel. The Karslaue is situated in the southern part of Kassel. It is a large complex of gardens. It was named after the founder Landgrave Karl.  The large Orangery was constructed in 1702-1710 by Pierre-Etienne Monot. The Kitchen pavillion was designed in 1765 by Simon Luis du Ry.

Ottoneum.
This is Germany's oldest and first permanent theatre. The Ottoneum dates from 1604-1605 when it was built for Landgrave Maurice the Learned. It was later remodelled by Paul du Ry in the late 1600's. Later, in 1885, it was transformed into a natural history museum.

Brothers Grimm Museum
In 1960 this museum was dedicated to the lives and work of the famous brothers Grimm. It contains the first editions of most of their important works.The brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born in 1785 and 1786 (respectively) in Hanau. They lived in Kassel from 1798 until 1830. Virtually all of their works were created in Kassel. The most important one is probably the "Kinder- und Hausmärchen", a collection of fairy-tales for children and grown-ups, published in 1812.

Hessisches Landesmuseum.and Tapetenmuseum (Wall paper museum)
Built by the Munich architect Theodor Fischer from 1910 to 1913. The building is an interesting mixture of Art Deco in connection with the tradition of the Huguenotic Baroque of Kassel’s Oberneustadt
The finest pieces of the collection in the Landesmuseum are the astronomical instruments, originally installed in 1560 in a Landgrave's castle. The fascinating Tapetenmuseum (wall paper museum) is also housed here. It was established in 1923 and presents the history of wallpaper and the methods of its production all over the world.

Kunsthalle Museum Fridericianum.
The Fridericianum became the second public museum (after the British Museum in London) to be built in Europe. Simon Louis du Ry completed this first classicist building of Germany in 1769-1776.  The Fridericianum was named after its donor Landgraf Friedrich I.  Its aim was to present all fields of knowledge in Friedrich’s time, symbolized by the six statues of arts and sciences placed on top of the building: philosophy, painting, architecture, sculpture, historiography and astronomy. The library of Hessen-Kassel also moved to the Fridericianum - this was to be the place, where the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm would work several years later. When the museum was destroyed in 1941, almost all of the 350,000 books burned. Since 1955 the Fridericianum has been the main venue for Kassel's multimedia contemporary art show, the Documenta. The version take took place in 2002 was the eleventh..