Count von Wartenberg, chief minister to Frederick I, commissioned Monbijou as a pleasure house of about 400 square meters. Eosander von Göthe, the royal architect, built it from 1703 to 1706. The article calls the style late Baroque in the text and Rococo in the infobox. Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff expanded it for Frederick the Great, but the article gives no date. Tsar Peter the Great stayed for two days in 1717.
It opened to the public in 1877 as the Hohenzollern Museum. Wartime looting removed much of the collection, and air raids in November 1943 left the palace almost entirely destroyed.
East Berlin authorities ordered its final demolition in 1959, despite objections from museum professionals. The site is now Monbijou Park, and the palace has not been rebuilt.
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