Architecture in Berlin: From Prussian Buildings to Glass Towers

Berlin has no intact old centre: destroyed in 1945, split in two for almost thirty years, rebuilt on both sides with opposing ideas, then reshaped after 1990, the city is an open-air museum of nineteenth- and twentieth-century architecture. A few metro stops take you from Prussian neoclassicism to modernist garden estates, from the GDR's monumental avenue to the glass buildings of reunified Berlin. This guide follows that chronological order and gives, for each building, the useful address, what can be visited and how to get there. Detailed hours and prices are in the linked pages.

Berlin's architecture at a glance

Four eras can be read in the landscape:

Neoclassical Prussia (1790-1860): columns, pediments and antique proportions, by Carl Gotthard Langhans and Karl Friedrich Schinkel.
1920s modernism: social housing, garden estates and glass, around Bruno Taut and the Bauhaus.
The two reconstructions (1950-1990): in the East, monumental avenues and the television tower; in the West, concert halls and modern museums at the Kulturforum.
Reunified Berlin (since 1990): the towers of Potsdamer Platz, the Reichstag dome, museum restorations by David Chipperfield.

Neoclassical Prussia: the Brandenburg Gate, Schinkel and Gendarmenmarkt

Schinkel's Altes Museum, with the television tower in the background

The Brandenburg Gate, built from 1788 to 1791 by Carl Gotthard Langhans, is inspired by the Propylaea of the Acropolis in Athens: it is the starting point of Unter den Linden and the best-known symbol of the city.

Karl Friedrich Schinkel is the architect who gave the Prussian capital its face. He designed the Neue Wache (1818) on Unter den Linden, the Konzerthaus on Gendarmenmarkt, completed in 1821 and rebuilt after the war, and the Altes Museum, opened in 1830 on the Lustgarten around a rotunda inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. These buildings can be seen in a single walk from the Brandenburg Gate: follow the route described in our guide to Mitte, then enter Museum Island.

On Museum Island, the Neues Museum, rebuilt by David Chipperfield and reopened in 2009, deliberately keeps the scars of the war in its brick and plaster. Next to it, the Berlin Cathedral by Julius Carl Raschdorff, consecrated in 1905, represents the neo-Renaissance eclecticism of the German Empire. A few metres away, the Humboldt Forum reuses three Baroque façades of the palace, rebuilt as identical copies; its façade on the Spree side is contemporary, by Franco Stella.

Art Nouveau and courtyard buildings: the Hackesche Höfe

The Hackesche Höfe, opened on 23 September 1906, combine flats, workshops and shops around eight linked courtyards. August Endell designed the Art Nouveau façades of the first courtyard. It is the best way to understand the layout of a Berlin city block of the late nineteenth century.

1920s modernism: the Hufeisensiedlung

In the 1920s the Weimar Republic made Berlin a laboratory of social housing. The Horseshoe Estate (Hufeisensiedlung), in Britz, is the most famous: built from 1925 to 1933 by Bruno Taut and Martin Wagner, with the landscape architect Leberecht Migge, it is organised around a large horseshoe-shaped block 350 metres long. The estate has about 1,285 flats and 679 terraced houses with gardens. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 7 July 2008, with five other estates, under the name "Berlin Modernism Housing Estates". You get there by metro (U7) from the centre; an information office provides details and tours.

The GDR: Karl-Marx-Allee, the TV tower and Alexanderplatz

The buildings of Karl-Marx-Allee near Frankfurter Tor station

In the East, architecture first served power. Karl-Marx-Allee, built from 1952 under the name Stalinallee, lines about two kilometres with huge buildings in Soviet neoclassical style, "palaces for workers", between Strausberger Platz and Frankfurter Tor, whose two domed towers are by Hermann Henselmann. It was renamed in 1961.

The television tower, built between 1965 and 1969, dominates Alexanderplatz at 368 metres. Its sphere was meant to recall Soviet satellites, and it takes up a design by Hermann Henselmann. With the square around it, it remained the most visible symbol of East Berlin.

The Cold War West: Eiermann, Scharoun, Mies van der Rohe

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Neue Nationalgalerie, a glass hall under a steel roof

In the West, reconstruction went through bold modern gestures. Between 1959 and 1963 the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church combined an octagonal church and a bell tower by Egon Eiermann with the ruins of the old tower. At the Kulturforum, Hans Scharoun's Philharmonie, opened on 15 October 1963, imposes a hall where the orchestra sits at the centre and the audience surrounds it, under a golden tent-like silhouette.

The Neue Nationalgalerie is Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's last major work, opened on 15 September 1968: a glass hall under a square steel roof 64.8 metres wide, carried by eight columns. Restored by David Chipperfield Architects, it reopened in August 2021. A ten-minute walk links the Kulturforum to Potsdamer Platz.

Reunified Berlin: Libeskind, the Reichstag and Potsdamer Platz

Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum, opened in autumn 2001, is a zigzag building clad in titanium-zinc, whose concrete "voids" represent the absence left by the Shoah. Visit the permanent exhibition even if you are not passionate about architecture: the building is part of the story.

The Reichstag, built from 1884 to 1894 by Paul Wallot, has housed the Bundestag since 1999. Norman Foster crowned it with a glass and steel dome 40 metres in diameter, open with free registration. The nearby Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is another way of making architecture a place of remembrance.

Rebuilt in the 1990s, Potsdamer Platz is the showcase of reunified Berlin: the district designed by Renzo Piano, Hans Kollhoff's dark brick tower (1999) with its Panoramapunkt, Helmut Jahn's glass tower and the Sony Center.

How to organise an architecture visit

Route	Stops	Suggested time
Neoclassical Prussia	Brandenburg Gate, Neue Wache, Gendarmenmarkt, Altes Museum	Half a day
Modernism	Hufeisensiedlung (Britz)	Two hours, plus travel
GDR	Karl-Marx-Allee, TV tower	Two to three hours
Kulturforum	Philharmonie, Neue Nationalgalerie	Half a day with a visit
Reunified Berlin	Reichstag, Potsdamer Platz, Jewish Museum	One day

For a short stay, choose two families of buildings rather than seeing everything: the GDR and the Kulturforum complement each other well.

Practical information

Getting from one building to the next

All the buildings are served by metro, S-Bahn, tram or bus; buses 100 and 200 pass several monuments in the centre. Tickets and zones are detailed in our guide to public transport in Berlin.

When to go

The light is best early in the morning or late in the afternoon, especially for the glass of Potsdamer Platz and the Neue Nationalgalerie. To go inside, prefer weekdays: some museums are closed on Mondays.