Historic Cities · Germany
Berlin through the ages
Berlin is the capital of Germany as well as its largest city by both area and population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the highest population within its city limits of any city in the European Union. The city is also one of the states of Germany, being the third-smallest state in the country by area.
Berlin in 1750
Frederician Berlin
This Berlin is a rising Prussian capital under Frederick II, where royal building projects and a packed garrison are reshaping a compact, riverside town. The walk follows Unter den Linden and the new Forum Fridericianum, passes the recently raised opera and St. Hedwig's, and moves through the Spree quays, market lanes and parade grounds of mid‑eighteenth‑century Berlin.
Low, closely packed rooflines of timber‑framed and plastered houses cluster along the Spree; new stone façades and domes of royal projects punctuate that medieval silhouette. Unter den Linden's young lime allee cuts a pale green ribbon toward the palace, sandy streets crunch under carriages, and narrow canals take barges to quays lined with warehouses. Soldiers in Prussian coats and caparisoned carts are constant notes against scaffolding, smoke and river reflections.
The walk — 22 streets, squares and views
Road from Potsdam → Potsdam Gate → Oktagon (Leipziger Platz) → Leipziger Straße → Friedrichstraße → Unter den Linden (west end) → Unter den Linden at Opera → Royal Opera House → St. Hedwig's Cathedral → Forum Fridericianum → …
Step inside — 14 interiors
Grenadier mess hall · Gazette printing shop · Tailor's workshop · Coffee house with gazettes · Main auditorium · Royal library reading room · Academy lecture hall · Royal tobacco chamber · Audience chamber · River warehouse · Fishmongers' hall · Nikolaikirche nave · Huguenot silk‑weaver's workshop · Ministerial counting room
Planned from the Wikipedia record: History of Berlin.
Berlin in 1871
Imperial Berlin
This is the city at the moment it becomes the capital of a newly proclaimed German Empire: a centre of court ceremony, booming industry and feverish building. The walk follows broad avenues, river quays and market squares where gaslight, horse traffic and uniformed troops meet Gründerzeit façades and older medieval lanes.
The skyline is a low city of chimneys, spirelets and the compact mass of the Royal Palace by the Spree; scaffolds and new masonry add a serried second layer of roofs. Wide boulevards such as Unter den Linden are lined with lime trees and gas lamps; trampling horses, omnibuses and soldiers animate the streets. Quays of the Spree, small bridges and the Tiergarten’s belts of mature trees break the masonry; colours favour ochres, dark brick, slate and the gleam of new brass.
The walk — 22 streets, squares and views
Potsdamer Bahnhof → Potsdamer Platz → Leipziger Platz → Leipziger Straße → Wilhelmstraße → Brandenburger Tor → Unter den Linden (west) → Opernplatz → Royal Opera House → Humboldt University → …
Step inside — 12 interiors
Arrival Concourse · Main Café Salon · Main Opera Auditorium · Philosophy Lecture Hall · White Audience Hall · Ceremonial Staircase · Antiquities Rotunda · Egyptian Sculpture Room · Saint Nicholas Choir · Panorama Rotunda · Municipal Council Chamber · Gilded Dome Hall
Planned from the Wikipedia record: History of Berlin.
Berlin in 1928
Weimar Berlin
Berlin in 1928 is at the height of the Weimar decade: an electrified, noisy metropolis where modern architecture, cinema palaces and neon-lit avenues sit beside older Gründerzeit streets. This walk moves from the western boulevards and department stores across the Stadtbahn and Potsdamer Platz to the civic axes and museums, showing the city’s public life — trams, early S‑Bahn, street vendors, postered façades and neon marquees.
A low, dense skyline of late‑19th‑century stone façades, church spires and the broad outline of civic domes is punctuated by new, flat‑roofed modernism and the bright, artificial light of cinema signs and neon along the Kurfürstendamm. Streets are layered: tram rails and shiny automobiles below, the Stadtbahn viaduct with electric S‑Bahn above, always postered, often damp with coal soot, with colours of varnished wood, painted shopfronts, plaster ochres and sharp white Bauhaus render.
The walk — 23 streets, squares and views
Charlottenburg Palace Approach → Kurfürstendamm Boulevard → Breitscheidplatz and Gedächtniskirche → Zoologischer Garten Forecourt → Tauentzienstraße and KaDeWe → Nollendorfplatz Junction → Motzstraße, Schöneberg → Potsdamer Straße Theatre Row → Potsdamer Platz Traffic Tower → Anhalter Bahnhof Forecourt → …
Step inside — 14 interiors
Romanisches Café Salon · Parish Nave and Galleries · UFA‑Palast Cinema Auditorium · KaDeWe Grand Atrium · Eldorado Cabaret Club · Traffic Tower Control Room · Anhalter Bahnhof Great Hall · Staatsoper Auditorium · Hotel Adlon Lobby · Schauspielhaus Concert Hall · Main Revue Stage · Hackesche Höfe Arcade · Altes Museum Antiquities Gallery · Victory Column Spiral Stair
Planned from the Wikipedia record: 1920s Berlin.
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