The Stadthalle was planned by Oberbürgermeister Siegfried Körte in 1907 and opened in the Vorder-Roßgarten district in 1912 according to designs by Richard Seel. It included concert halls, a restaurant, and a garden cafe in front of the castle pond Schlossteich. The halls were named after the initiators: :de:Siegfried Körte|Siegfried Körte, :de:Theodor Krohne|Theodor Krohne and :de:Carl Julius Gebauhr|Carl Julius Gebauhr. The Königsberger Philharmonie often performed in the 1,600-seat center.
Since 1991 it has hosted the Kaliningrad Regional Museum of History and Arts. The museum, founded in 1946, previously had multiple locations throughout the city. It includes exhibits on regional nature, archaeology, history, World War II, and post-war Kaliningrad. The museum also has branches in the city and the Kaliningrad Oblast. The museum has five halls, each of which is dedicated to a specific topic.
Nature Hall
The hall is dedicated to the nature of the Kaliningrad region. Here are animal and bird droppings, minerals from the Kaliningrad region. There are several displays in the hall: the Baltic Sea, the Curonian Lagoon, the Curonian forest, the Poyma River, the bog, the mixed forest.
Archeological Hall
The archeological hall is dedicated to the earliest era of the region's history. The exhibition includes late Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age, until region conversion to Protestantism. The archaeological site is not only about the ancient Prussia, but also about the Vikings that settled in Prussia in Cranz,. A large part of the archaeological collection is composed of exhibits from the Prussian Museum, which were considered lost and found. The rest of the items were discovered by Soviet and Russian archeologists after the war.
This hall is dedicated to the history of the region, from the time of the conquest of Prussia by the Teutonic Order Knights until 1945. The hall features samples of old weapons, furniture, household items.
The War Room is dedicated to World War II. Here are samples of weapons, military uniforms and other items related to war. The "Königsberg attack" corpse is in the hall.
"Memory horizons" hall
This hall is dedicated to the post-war history of the region. The exhibition features the life and lifestyle of the first residents, products of the first Kaliningrad enterprise, including amber products, as well as dismantled monuments of Lenin.
