Historic Mitte
This highly respected cultural centre showcases contemporary non-European art, music, dance, literature, films and theatre, and also serves as a…
Must-see attractions in Berlin
Berlin
Georg Kolbe (1877–1947) was one of Germany's most influential early 20th-century sculptors and a member of the Berlin Secession. He distanced himself from…
Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Historic Mitte
Marx and Engels studied here, and the Brothers Grimm and Albert Einstein taught here: Humboldt is Berlin’s oldest university, founded in 1810 in a palace…
Berlin
For a striking perspective of Berlin’s Olympiastadion (Olympic Stadium), take the lift up to the outdoor observation platform of this 77m-high bell tower,…
Historic Mitte
This trio of shopping complexes (called Quartiere), built during the post-reunification construction boom years, never really succeeded at triggering the…
Historic Mitte
This temple-like neoclassical structure (1818) was Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s first important Berlin commission. Originally a royal guardhouse and a…
Historic Mitte
One of Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s finest buildings, the Konzerthaus (1821) rose from the ashes of Carl Gotthard Langhans’ Schauspielhaus (National Theatre)…
Berlin
If you only know Salvador Dalí as the painter of melting watches, burning giraffes and other surrealist imagery, this private collection will likely open…
Historic Mitte
The glass-and-concrete Paul-Löbe-Haus contains offices for the Bundestag’s parliamentary committees. It’s filled with modern art that can be viewed only…
Berlin
The star exhibit at Germany’s oldest astronomical observatory is the 21m-long refracting telescope (the world’s longest), built in 1896 by astronomer…
Prenzlauer Berg
The fanciful red-and-yellow brick buildings of this 19th-century brewery have been upcycled into a cultural powerhouse with a small village's worth of…
Berlin
Complete this analogy: London is to Abbey Road as Berlin is to…Well? Hansa Studios, of course, that seminal recording studio that has exerted a…
Historic Mitte
The heart of a cultural centre envisioned by King Frederick the Great, austere Bebelplatz is infamous as the site of the first full-blown public book…
Historic Mitte
The Federal Chancellery, Germany’s ‘White House’, is a sparkling, modern compound designed by Axel Schultes and Charlotte Frank and consisting of two…
Historic Mitte
The 1705 Französischer Dom was built by Huguenot refuges and consists of two buildings: the soaring domed tower and the attached Französische Kirche …
Historic Mitte
The Deutscher Dom (German Cathedral) wasn’t much of a looker until being topped by Gontard’s dazzling galleried dome in 1785. Built as the Neue Kirche …
Historic Mitte
If you were lucky enough to own a car in East Germany, it would most likely have been a Trabant (Trabi in short), a tinny two-stroker whose name (…
Sowjetisches Ehrenmal Tiergarten
Historic Mitte
Berlin lay in ruins when this imposing memorial was dedicated in November 1945. It is one of three in the city that honours the 80,000 Soviet soldiers who…
Berlin
Tourist like to pose in front of these graffiti-festooned segments of the Berlin Wall set up along its original course outside the Potsdamer Platz train…
Reiterdenkmal Friedrich der Grosse
Historic Mitte
Seemingly surveying his domain, Frederick the Great cuts a commanding figure on horseback in this famous 1850 monument that kept sculptor Christian Daniel…
Zoo Berlin Elephant Gate Entrance
City West & Charlottenburg
Two life-size elephant sculptures flanking a pagoda roof made of red wood, golden ornaments and green glazed tiles offer an exotic welcome to Berlin's…
Museumsinsel & Alexanderplatz
Compact, engaging and interactive, the permanent exhibit at this local history museum zeroes in on historic milestones and key protagonists that shaped…
Kreuzberg
This obscure museum ostensibly traces German design history from the early 20th century to today, but actually feels more like a cross between a cabinet…
City West & Charlottenburg
The Amerika Haus was a United States–sponsored cultural and information centre with a library, cinema and exhibition spaces. Designed by Bruno Grimmek, it…
Berlin
This youth-geared exhibit uses artefacts and photographs to tell the extraordinary story of a girl who needs no introduction. Millions of people around…
Berlin
High-tech and interactive, this private museum not only documents the evolution of spying from ancient Egypt to the 20th century, it also displays…
Berlin
US president John F Kennedy has held a special place in German hearts since his defiant ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’ ('I am a Berliner') solidarity speech in…
Museumsinsel & Alexanderplatz
Once the home of Veitel Heine Ephraim – court jeweller and coin minter to Frederick the Great – this pretty, pint-size 1766 town palace hosts changing…
Historic Mitte
This copper-domed church (1773) was commissioned by Frederick the Great, designed by Knobelsdorff, modelled after the Pantheon in Rome and named for the…
Museumsinsel & Alexanderplatz
This Gothic brick gem has welcomed worshippers since the early 14th century, making it one of Berlin’s oldest surviving churches. A 22m-long Dance of…
Kreuzberg
This grand, twin-towered hospital was built in the 1840s by three students of Karl Friedrich Schinkel and used until 1970. Since 1973, it's been a…
Historic Mitte
The Cold War years, especially the history and horror of the Berlin Wall, are engagingly, if haphazardly, documented in this privately run tourist magnet…
Museumsinsel & Alexanderplatz
The late-Gothic Church of St Nicholas (1230) is Berlin’s oldest surviving building and is now a museum documenting the architecture and history of the…
Historic Mitte
Berlin's first library is a baroque beauty commissioned by Frederick the Great to shelter the royal book collection. Completed in 1780, its design mimics…
Jüdischer Friedhof Schönhauser Allee
Prenzlauer Berg
Berlin's second Jewish cemetery opened in 1827 and hosts many well-known dearly departed, such as the artist Max Liebermann and the composer Giacomo…
Berlin
This 18th-century country estate, with its frilly neo-Renaissance facade and surrounding park, once served as the residence of Prussian ministers and high…
Kreuzberg
This multimedia exhibit, moodily set inside a WWI air-raid shelter, provides a handy introduction to Berlin by charting milestones in its history through…
Historic Mitte
Berlin was burning and Soviet tanks advancing relentlessly when Adolf Hitler killed himself on 30 April 1945, alongside Eva Braun, his long-time female…
Museumsinsel & Alexanderplatz
Like no other artist of his time, Heinrich Zille (1858–1929) managed to capture the hardships of working-class life in the industrial age with empathy and…
Berlin
Playwright Bertolt Brecht lived in this apartment from 1953 until his death in 1956. Tours (in German) take you inside his office, a large library, and…
