t The striking home of the Berlin Philharmonic
g Tiergarten g Contents
t The striking home of the Berlin Philharmonic
Home to one of the most renowned orchestras in Europe, the Philharmonic and Chamber Music Hall is among the finest postwar architectural achievements in Europe. The Philharmonic, completed in 1963 to a design by Hans Scharoun, pioneered a new concept in concert hall interiors. The orchestra’s podium occupies the central section of the pentagonal hall, around which are galleries for the public, designed to blend into the perspective of the five corners. The exterior reflects the interior and is reminiscent of a circus tent.
The Berlin Philharmonic was founded in 1882 and has been directed by such luminaries as Hans von Bülow, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Sir Simon Rattle and the controversial Herbert von Karajan and Claudio Abbado. The current director is Kirill Petrenko, who took up the position in 2019. The orchestra attained renown not only for the quality of its concerts, but also through its prolific symphony recordings.
The smaller Chamber Music Hall was added in the 1980s. Designed to complement Scharoun’s existing architecture, it features a central multisided space covered by a fanciful tent-like roof.
Hidden behind the Philharmonie, in a small building designed by Edgar Wisniewski and Hans Scharoun between 1979 and 1984, the fascinating Museum of Musical Instruments houses over 750 exhibits in a collection dating from 1888. Intriguing displays enable you to trace each instrument’s development, from the 16th century to the present day. You can marvel at the harpsichord of Jean Marius, once owned by Frederick the Great, and the violins made by Amati and Stradivarius.
Most spectacular of all is the silent-film-era cinema organ, a working Wurlitzer dating from 1929. With a range of sounds that extends even to locomotive impressions, the demonstrations of its powers every Saturday at noon attract enthusiastic crowds. However, at all times throughout the week the sounds of other exhibited instruments can be heard via recordings.
The museum also has an excellent archive and library open to the public, and its calendar of events is full of live concerts.
t Street organ in the Musikinstrumenten-Museum collection
Experience Tiergarten
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STAY Das Stue Located inside a former embassy, Das Stue (“living room” in Danish), has a plush and playful Nordic-style interior that houses a Michelin-starred restaurant, Susanne Kaufmann Spa and a cool cocktail bar. G6 ⌂ Drakestrasse 1 ∑ das-stue.com ¡¡¡ Ritz Carlton This distinctive Art Deco skyscraper offers one of the classiest stays in the city. It has a couple of great bars, an atmospheric brasserie and sumptuous rooms. J6 ⌂ Potsdamer Platz 3 ∑ ritzcarlton.com ¡¡¡ |
The print collections of galleries in the former East and West Berlin were united in 1994 in the Print Library, located in the Kulturforum. These displays originated with a collection started by the Great Elector in 1652, which has been open to the public since 1831. Despite wartime losses it has an imposing breadth and can boast around 2,000 engravers’ plates, over 520,000 prints and around 110,000 drawings and watercolours. Sadly, only a small fraction of these delicate treasures can be even briefly exposed to daylight; therefore the museum does not have a permanent exhibition, only galleries with temporary displays of selected works. For visitors with a special interest, items in storage can be viewed in the studio gallery by prior arrangement.
The collection includes work from every renowned artist from the Middle Ages to contemporary times. Well represented is the work of Botticelli (including illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy), Dürer, Rembrandt and the Dutch Masters, Watteau, Goya, Daumier and painters of the Die Brücke art movement.
The Art Library is not only a collection of a vast range of books and periodicals about the arts, making it a valuable resource for researchers; it is also a museum with a huge collection of posters, advertisements and an array of other forms of design. Worth seeing is a display on the history of fashion, as well as a vast collection of items of architectural interest. The latter includes around 30,000 original plans and drawings by architects such as Johann Balthasar Neumann, Erich Mendelsohn and Paul Wallot.
The exhibitions can be seen in the reading and studio rooms, and also in the library’s own galleries.
St Matthew’s Church once stood in the centre of a small square surrounded by buildings. After bomb damage in World War II, the structure was restored, making it the focal point of the Kulturforum. The church was originally built between 1844 and 1846 to a design by Friedrich August Stüler and Hermann Wentzel, in a style based on Italian Romanesque temples.
Each of the three naves is covered by a separate two- tier roof, while the eastern end of the church is closed by a semicircular apse. The exterior is covered in a two-tone brick façade arranged in yellow and red lines. Ironically, this pretty church with its slender tower now creates quite an exotic element among the many ultramodern and sometimes extravagant buildings of the Kulturforum.
The magnificent collection of modern art housed in the New National Gallery has a troubled history. The core of the collection consisted of 262 paintings that belonged to banker J H W Wagener. In the late 1860s, when Wagener died, he bequeathed them to Crown Prince William, who housed them in the Nationalgalerie on Museumsinsel.
However, in 1937, a Nazi programme of cultural cleansing meant that over 400 of the works in the collection, which had grown to include paintings by Monet, Manet and Renoir, were confiscated.
After World War II the Berlin municipal authority decided to rebuild the collection and authorized the construction of a suitable building in West Berlin to house it. The commission was given to the elder statesman of modern architecture, the 75-year-old Mies van der Rohe. The result is a striking, minimalist building with a flat steel roof over a glass hall, which appears to float in mid-air supported only by six slender interior struts.
The collection comprises largely 20th-century art, but begins with artists of the late 19th century, such as Edvard Munch, Ferdinand Hodler and Oskar Kokoschka. German movements, such as Die Brücke, are well represented, with pieces by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (notably his evocative oil painting Potsdamer Platz).
As well as the Bauhaus movement, represented by Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky, the gallery shows works by exponents of a stark realism, such as Otto Dix and George Grosz. Celebrated artists of other European countries are also included – Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, de Chirico, Dalí, René Magritte and Max Ernst. Post-World War II art is represented by Barnett Newman, Frank Stella and many others. The sculpture garden houses important works, both figurative and abstract.
Following reunification, new works by artists from the former East Germany were added. Some of the art is sometimes shown at the Hamburger Bahnhof, as both museums draw on the same collection.
Experience Tiergarten
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t Contemporary art shown by the nonprofit art collective Urban Nation
The Urban Nation Museum For Contemporary Art opened in 2017 in Schöneberg, though its roots as an organization stretch back to 2013. Whereas the collective behind it, under the curation of Yasha Young, had previously used the city’s surfaces as canvasses for outdoor street art and installations, now there is an indoor space to show them off, too. As well as exhibiting the work of international and local artists, the nonprofit venue hosts workshops and events – and it’s still possible to find much of their work on the streets around the gallery; look out for the large mural on the corner of Bülowstrasse and Frobenstrasse.
A few years ago, Schöneberg’s main drag, Potsdamer Strasse, was known for its seedy sex shops and run-down casinos. These days only slight traces of this insalubrious past remain, as gentrification has ushered in a new generation of shops, galleries, cafés and bars. Sitting alongside established spots like the Victoria Bar (No. 102) and the charming Joseph Roth-Diele at No. 75 are shiny newcomers: art galleries such as Circle Culture (No. 75) and Esther Schipper (No. 81e), stylish restaurants such as Oh Panama (No. 91) and luxury designer shops like Andreas Murkudis (No. 81).
t Tranquil, informal study space in the Staatsbibliothek
An unusually shaped building with an east-facing gilded dome, the State Library is home to one of the largest collections of books and manuscripts in Europe and is fondly referred to by Berliners as the “Stabi”. After World War II, East and West Berlin each inherited part of the prewar state library collection and the Staatsbibliothek was built to house the part belonging to West Berlin. The building itself was designed by Hans Scharoun and Edgar Wisniewski and constructed between 1967 and 1978.
It is a building where the disciplines of function and efficiency take precedence over that of form. The store rooms hold about five million volumes; the hall of the vast reading room is open-plan, with an irregular arrangement of partitions and floor levels; general noise and the sound of footsteps is muffled by fitted carpets, making the interior a very quiet and cosy place in which to work.
The library itself houses more than four million books and an excellent collection of manuscripts. It is formally linked to the Staatsbibliothek on Unter den Linden.
This building is undoubtedly a gem for lovers of the architecture developed during the period between World Wars I and II. This Modernist office block was designed by Emil Fahrenkamp and was completed in 1932. The most eye-catching wing extends along Landwehrkanal with a zigzag elevation; from a height of five storeys it climbs upwards in a series of steps, finishing up ten storeys high.
Damaged during World War II, Shell-Haus went through several stages of restoration and multiple incarnations, including as the German navy headquarters and as a military hospital. Beautiful proportions and original design place the structure among the finest of Berlin’s buildings of its era.
Although a number of con-sulates existed in the Tiergarten area as early as 1918, the establishment of a Diplomatic Quarter along the southern edge of the Tiergarten, between Stauffen-bergstrasse and Lichtenstein-allee, did not take place until the period of Hitler’s Third Reich, when large embassies representing the Axis Powers, Italy and Japan, were built here.
Despite the fact that these monumental buildings were designed by a number of different architects, the Fascist interpretation of Neo-Classicism and the influence of Albert Speer as head architect meant that the group was homogenous, if bleak. Few buildings survived World War II bombing.
Today, the diplomatic area is bounded by Tiergarten-strasse. The Austrian embassy, designed by Hans Hollein, stands at the junction of Stauffenbergstrasse, next door to the embassies of India and the Republic of South Africa. At Tiergartenstrasse Nos. 21–3, the pre-World War II Italian embassy still stands, while next door is a copy of the first Japanese embassy. Between Klingelhöfer-strasse and Rauchstrasse stands an imposing complex of five embassies. Completed in 1999, these represent Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. The complex has an art gallery and café open to the public.
Experience Tiergarten
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SHOP Andreas Murkudis One of the first establishments to kick off the ongoing gentrification of this formerly gritty street, this huge, white, bright space stocks a selection of luxury goods curated by the eponymous owner. I7 ⌂ Potsdamer Strasse 81 # 10am–9pm Mon–Sat ∑ andreasmurkudis.com |
t Tiergarten in summer
This is the largest park in Berlin. Situated at the geographical centre of the city it occupies a surface area of more than 200 ha (495 acres). Once a forest used as the Elector’s hunting reserve, it was transformed into a landscaped park by Peter Joseph Lenné in the 1830s. A Triumphal Avenue was built in the eastern section of the park at the end of the 19th century, lined with statues of the country’s rulers and statesmen.
World War II inflicted huge damage on the Tiergarten, including the destruction of the Triumphal Avenue, many of whose surviving monuments can now be seen in the Zitadelle Spandau. Replanting, however, has now restored the Tiergarten, which is a favourite meeting place for Berliners. Its avenues are now lined with statues of figures such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Richard Wagner.
By the lake known as Neuer See and the Landwehrkanal are memorials to the murdered leaders of the Spartacus movement, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. Also worth finding is a collection of gas lamps, displayed near the Tiergarten S-Bahn station.
t Tiergarten in autumn
This fine villa, built in a late Neo-Classical style, is one of the few surviving reminders that the southern side of the Tiergarten was one of the most expensive and beautiful residential areas of Berlin.
Designed by Hermann Ende and G A Linke, the villa dates from 1862. The neatly manicured gardens and railings around the villa are adorned with busts of Christian Daniel Rauch and Alexander von Humboldt. The statues, by Reinhold Begas, originally lined the Triumphal Avenue in the Tiergarten before being moved here. After restoration in 1980, the villa became the headquarters of one of the most influential cultural bodies, the Foundation of Prussian Cultural Heritage.
The Great Star roundabout at the centre of the Tiergarten is so-named for the five large roads that radiate from it. At its centre is the enormous Siegessäule (Victory Column;). Surrounding it are monuments brought over from the nearby Reichstag building in the late 1930s. During the same period, the Strasse des 17 Juni was widened to twice its original size, the square surrounding the roundabout was enlarged and much of the existing statuary removed.
In the northern section of the square stands a vast bronze monument to the first German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck (1815–98). Around it stand allegorical figures, the work of late 19th-century sculptor Reinhold Begas. Other statues represent various national heroes including Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke (1800–91), chief of the Prussian general staff between the years 1858 and 1888, who won the Franco-German war.
Built in the 19th century, Berlin’s Landwehr Canal meanders through several inner-city districts, passing plenty of interesting sights along the way. As well as the café-lined stretches through Kreuzberg, it also passes Potsdamer Platz, the celebrated Neue Nationalgalerie, the distinctive Bauhaus-Archiv and through the Tiergarten. In summer, stop off at the Tiergarten’s charming Café am Neuen See, where you can row on the small lake.
t The squat structure and parabolic roof of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, affectionately called the “pregnant oyster”
The House of World Culture, designed by the American architect Hugh Stubbins, was intended as the American entry in the international architecture competition “Interbau 1957”, from which the Hansaviertel apartment blocks also originated. It soon became a symbol of freedom and modernity in West Berlin during the Cold War, particularly when compared to the GDR-era architecture of Karl-Marx-Allee in East Berlin.
Unfortunately its roof failed to withstand the test of time and the building partially collapsed in 1980. After reconstruction it was re-opened in 1989, with a change of purpose: to bring world cultures to a wider German audience via events, exhibitions and performances. It is known for its jazz festivals in particular.
Standing nearby is the black tower of the Carillon, built in 1987 to commemorate the 750th anniversary of Berlin. Suspended in the tower is the largest carillon in Europe, comprising 67 bells. Daily, at noon and 6pm, the bells give a brief computer-controlled concert.
The huge Monument to Soviet Soldiers near the Brandenburg Gate was unveiled on 7 November 1945, on the anniversary of the start of the October Revolution in Russia. Flanked by the first two tanks into the city, the monument commemorates over 300,000 Soviet soldiers who perished in the battle for Berlin at the end of World War II. The vast column was made from marble taken from the headquarters of the Chancellor of the Third Reich when it was being dismantled.
The monument is also a cemetery for around 2,500 Soviet casualties. Following the partition of Berlin, the site ended up in the British sector, but formed a kind of non-territorial enclave to which Soviet soldiers posted to East Berlin had access.
t A heroic figure standing watch atop the Sowjetisches Ehrenmal monument
The captivating Bellevue Palace with its dazzlingly white Neo-Classical façade is now the official residence of the German Federal President, and is a very pretty sight from the northern edge of the Tiergarten park. Built in 1786 to a design by Michael Philipp Boumann for the Prussian Prince August Ferdinand, the palace served as a royal residence until 1861. In 1935 it was refurbished to house a Museum of German Ethnology. Refurbished again in 1938, it became a hotel for guests of the Nazi government.
Following bomb damage during World War II, the palace was carefully restored to its former glory, with the oval ballroom rebuilt to a design by Carl Gotthard Langhans. The palace is set within an attractive park laid out to the original late 18th-century design, though unfortunately the picturesque garden pavilions that once stood here did not survive World War II.
Built to house the German Parliament, the Reichstag was intended to symbolize the national unity and aspirations of the new German Empire, declared in 1871. The Neo-Renaissance design by Paul Wallot captured the prevailing spirit of German optimism. Completed in 1894, it was funded by money paid by the French as wartime reparations.
The Reichstag became a potent symbol that would be exploited in the years to come. It was here that in 1918 Philipp Scheidemann declared the formation of the Weimar Republic. On the night of 28 February 1933, a fire destroyed the main hall. The Communists were blamed, accelerating a political witch-hunt driven by the Nazis, who subsequently came to power.
When World War II began, the building was not rebuilt. Yet its significance resonated beyond Germany, as shown by the photograph of the Soviet flag flying from the Reichstag in May 1945, which became a symbol of the German defeat.
Between 1957 and 1972, the dome and most of the ornamentation was removed. What remained made a spectacular backdrop for huge festivals and rock concerts, much to the annoyance of the East German authorities.
On 2 December 1990, the Reichstag was the first meeting place of a newly elected Bundestag following German reunification. On 23 June 1995, the artist Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude wrapped the Reichstag in fabric – an artistic statement that lasted for two weeks.
The latest phase of rebuilding, between 1995 and 1999 to a design by Lord Norman Foster, transformed the Reichstag into a modern meeting hall beneath an elliptical dome. Visits to the cupola’s viewing gallery are free and the views are breath-taking. Advance registration is required, either online or at least two hours in advance at the service centre on Scheidemannstrasse.
t Visitors taking an audiotour of the materials in the Reichstag’s dome, designed as a spectacular viewing gallery
Experience Tiergarten
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EAT As well as galleries and cafés, revitalized Potsdamer Strasse has an interesting mix of dining spots. Oh Panama I8 ⌂ Potsdamer Strasse 91 # 6pm–11pm Tue-Sat ∑ oh-panama.com ¡¡¡ Joseph Roth Diele I7 ⌂ Potsdamer Strasse 75 # 10am–midnight Mon–Fri ∑ joseph-roth-diele.de ¡¡¡ Facil J6 ⌂ Potsdamer Strasse 3 # Opening times vary, see website for details ∑ facil.de ¡¡¡ |
t The Regierungsviertel’s Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus office building (2003) is named for one of Germany’s first female politicians
This bold concept for a government district fit for a 21st-century capital was the winning design in a competition held in 1992. Construction of the complex was completed in 2003. Axel Schultes and Charlotte Frank’s grand design proposed a rectangular site cutting across the meander of the Spree just north of the Reichstag.
While many of the buildings have been designed by other architects to fit within the overall concept, Schultes and Frank designed the Bundeskanzleramt, opposite the Reichstag – the official residence of the German Chancellor. The whole project is complemented by the neighbouring Hauptbahnhof railway station, an impressive glass-and-steel construction with several levels above and below ground. The city’s newest U-Bahn line, the U55, connects Hauptbahnhof to the Bundestag and Brandenburg Gate, and will eventually be extended to Alexanderplatz.
The Bauhaus school of art, started by Walter Gropius in 1919, was one of the most influential art institutions of the 20th century. The belief of the Bauhaus group was that art and technology should combine in harmonious unity.
Originally based in Weimar, and from 1925 in Dessau, this school provided inspiration for numerous artists and architects. Staff and students included Mies van der Rohe, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Theo van Doesburg and László Moholy-Nagy. The school moved to Berlin in 1932, but was closed down by the Nazis in 1933.
After the war, the Bauhaus-Archiv was relocated to Darmstadt. In 1964 Walter Gropius designed a building to house the collection, but it was never realized. The archive was moved to Berlin in 1971, where the design was adapted to the new site. The gleaming white building with its distinctive glass-panelled gables was completed in 1979, and while the interior is closed for renovation, the exterior is magnificent. Some of the archive (together with its Bauhaus shop) can be seen in its temporary home in the Hardenberg Haus, on the corner of Knesebeckstrasse and Hardenbergstrasse, not far from Berlin Zoo.
The year the renovated and extended Bauhaus-Archiv will open to the public.
The Victory Column is based on a design by Johann Heinrich Strack and was built to commemorate Prussia’s triumph in the Prusso-Danish war of 1864.
After further Prussian victories, “Goldelse”, a gilded figure by Friedrich Drake representing Victory, was added to the top. The monument stood in front of the Reichstag building until the Nazi government moved it here in 1938. The base is decorated with bas-reliefs commemorating battles. Higher up the column a mosaic frieze depicts the 1871 founding of the German Empire. An observation terrace at the top offers magnificent vistas over Berlin.
t The Siegessäule, or Victory Column, bathed in golden sunlight
The collection of buildings known as the Bendlerblock was originally built during the Third Reich as an extension to the German State Naval Offices. During World War II these buildings were the headquarters of the Wehrmacht (German Army). It was here that a group of officers planned their famous and ultimately unsuccessful assassination attempt on Hitler on 20 July 1944. Four of the conspirators were shot in the Bendlerblock courtyard, and a monument commemorating this event, designed by Richard Scheibe in 1953, stands where the executions were carried out. On the upper floor of the building is an exhibition documenting the history of the German anti-Nazi movements.
This area to the west of Schloss Bellevue is home to some of the most interesting modern architecture in Berlin, built for an international exhibition in 1957. Taking on a World War II bomb site, prominent architects from around the world designed 45 projects, of which 36 were realized, to create a varied residential development set in an environment of lush greenery. The list of distinguished architects involved in the project included Walter Gropius (Händelallee Nos. 3–9), Alvar Aalto (Klopstockstrasse Nos. 30–32) and Oscar Niemeyer (Altonaer Strasse Nos. 4–14). The development also includes a school, a commercial services building and two churches.
In 1960, a new headquarters for the Akademie der Künste (Academy of Arts) was built at Hanseatenweg No. 10. Designed by Werner Düttmann, the academy has a concert hall, an exhibition area, archives and a library. In front of the main entrance is a magnificent piece, Reclining Figure, by eminent British sculptor Henry Moore.
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