Tour of the City

The Jesuit Christian Mayer was the first astronomer in the Electoral Palatinate. He asked the Elector Carl Theodor to put up a new building in Mannheim instead of the temporary observatory in the castle in Schwetzingen. At first the plan was to redesign the tower near the Jesuit College. But this plan was rejected because of the bad condition the "old tower" was in. The observatory was then built according to the plans of Johann Lacher west of the Jesuit Church from 1772 to 1774.

Observation was interrupted for 6 years because of war. Only in 1801 could one start setting up the instruments again, which had been stored away in boxes. This took about two years. After this the observatory continued its work until 1846. The building as well as the equipment had, for a long time, not been able to meet the requirements of a modern observatory. A move was under discussion for a period of time, but the observatory was able to resume its work in 1860 under the court astronomer E. Schönfeld. A revolving dome had been installed on the platform.

 The scientific importance of the observatory increased tremendously and with this the discussion about a new building was picked up again. As larger repairs to the building became necessary, the observatory was moved to Karlsruhe in 1880. The building was given to the city with building rights and renovated in 1905/06. The observatory came through the Second World War almost undamaged. Repairs could only begin in 1958 as they had to be postponed because of other, more urgent, building projects. Formerly only the first floor was used as an apartment; now the other floors have also been converted into studio apartments.

The observatory used to be advantageously situated on the edge of the Friedrichspark. Today the building stands somewhat isolated near the busy slip-road leading to the Konrad-Adenauer bridge (A 4).