Alexanderplatz

A hospital stood at the location of present-day Alexanderplatz since the 13th century. Named Heiliger Georg (St. George), the hospital gave its name to the nearby Georgentor (George Gate) of the Berlin city wall. Outside the city walls, this area was largely undeveloped until around 1400, when the first settlers began building thatched cottages. As a gallows was located close by, the area earned the nickname the Teufels Lustgarten ('Devil's Pleasure Garden').[1]

Memhardt Plan from 1652 with Georgentor

The George Gate became the most important of Berlin's city gates during the 16th century, being the main entry point for goods arriving along the roads to the north and north-east of the city, for example from Oderberg, Prenzlau and Bernau, and the big Hanseatic cities on the Baltic Sea.

After the Thirty Years' War, the city wall was strengthened. From 1658 to 1683, a citywide fortress was constructed to plans by the Linz master builder, Johann Gregor Memhardt. The new fortress contained 13 bastions connected by ramparts and was preceded by a moat measuring up to 50 metres (160 ft) wide. Within the new fortress, many of the historic city wall gates were closed. For example, the southeastern Stralauer Gate was closed but the Georgian Gate remained open, making the Georgian Gate an even more important entrance to the city.

In 1681, the trade of cattle and pig fattening was banned within the city. Frederick William, the Great Elector, granted cheaper plots of land, waiving the basic interest rate, in the area in front of the Georgian Gate. Settlements grew rapidly and a weekly cattle market was established on the square in front of the Gate.

The area developed into a suburb – the Georgenvorstadt – which continued to flourish into the late 17th century. Unlike the southwestern suburbs (Friedrichstadt, Dorotheenstadt) which were strictly and geometrically planned, the suburbs in the northeast (Georgenvorstadt, Spandauervorstadt and the Stralauer Vorstadt) proliferated without plan. Despite a building ban imposed in 1691, more than 600 houses existed in the area by 1700.

At that time, the George Gate was a rectangular gatehouse with a tower. Next to the tower stood a remaining tower from the original medieval city walls. The upper floors of the gatehouse served as the city jail.[2] A drawbridge spanned the moat and the gate was locked at nightfall by the garrison using heavy oak planks.

A highway ran through the cattle market to the northeast towards Bernau. To the right stood the George chapel, an orphanage and a hospital that was donated by the Elector Sophie Dorothea in 1672. Next to the chapel stood a dilapidated medieval plague house which was demolished in 1716. Behind it was a rifleman's field and an inn, later named the Stelzenkrug.

By the end of the 17th century, 600 to 700 families lived in this area. They included butchers, cattle herders, shepherds and dairy farmers. The George chapel was upgraded to the George church and received its own preacher.

City map showing the Königsvorstadt (1789). The Alt Berlin is shown in red, the royal suburbs northeast brown.

Alexanderplatz, 1796 (in the middle the Königsbrücke (King's Bridge) with its colonnades)

After his coronation in Königsberg on 6 May 1701 the Prussian King Frederick I entered Berlin through the George Gate. This led to the gate being renamed the King's Gate, and the surrounding area became known in official documents as Königs Thor Platz (King's Gate Square). The Georgenvorstadt suburb was renamed Königsvorstadt (or 'royal suburbs' short).

In 1734, the Berlin Customs Wall, which initially consisted of a ring of palisade fences, was reinforced and grew to encompass the old city and its suburbs, including Königsvorstadt. This resulted in the King's Gate losing importance as an entry point for goods into the city. The gate was finally demolished in 1746.

By the end of the 18th century, the basic structure of the royal suburbs of the Königsvorstadt had been developed. It consisted of irregular-shaped blocks of buildings running along the historic highways which once carried goods in various directions out of the gate. At this time, the area contained large factories (silk and wool), such as the Kurprinz (one of Berlin's first cloth factories, located in a former barn) and a workhouse established in 1758 for beggars and homeless people, where the inmates worked a man-powered treadmill to turn a mill.[3]

Soon, military facilities came to dominate the area, such as the 1799–1800 military parade grounds designed by David Gilly. At this time, the residents of the Platz were mostly craftsmen, petty-bourgeois, retired soldiers and manufacturing workers.[3] The southern part of the later Alexanderplatz was separated from traffic by trees and served as a parade ground, whereas the northern half remained a market. Beginning in the mid-18th century, the most important wool market in Germany was held in Alexanderplatz.

Between 1752 and 1755, the writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing lived in a house on Alexanderplatz. In 1771, a new stone bridge (the Königsbrücke) was built over the moat and in 1777 a colonnade-lined row of shops (Königskolonnaden) was constructed by architect Carl von Gontard. Between 1783 and 1784, seven three-storey buildings were erected around the square by Georg Christian Unger, including the famous Gasthof zum Hirschen, where Karl Friedrich Schinkel lived as a permanent tenant and Heinrich von Kleist stayed in the days before his suicide.

On 25 October 1805 the Russian Tsar Alexander I was welcomed to the city on the parade grounds in front of the old King's Gate. To mark this occasion, on 2 November, King Frederick William III ordered the square to be renamed Alexanderplatz:[4]

His Royal Majesty, by means of the supreme Cabinet, orders on the 2nd of this month, those in the Königs-Vorstadt Sandgasse to take the name Kaiserstrasse, and the square in front of the workhouse in the newly-conceived suburb settles with the name of Alexander-Platz, this is hereby made known to the public for news and attention."

— Royal Prussian Police Directorate

In the southeast of the square, the cloth factory buildings were converted into the Königstädter Theater by Carl Theodor Ottmer at a cost of 120,000 Taler. The foundation stone was laid on 31 August 1823 and the opening ceremony occurred on 4 August 1824. Sales were poor, forcing the theatre to close on 3 June 1851. Thereafter, the building was used for wool storage, then as a tenement building, and finally as an inn called Aschinger until the building's demolition in 1932.

During these years, Alexanderplatz was populated by fish wives, water carriers, sand sellers, rag-and-bone men, knife sharpeners and day laborers.[4]

Because of its importance as a transport hub, horse-drawn buses ran every 15 minutes between Alexanderplatz and Potsdamer Platz in 1847.[5]

During the March Revolution of 1848, large-scale street fighting occurred on the streets of Alexanderplatz, where revolutionaries used barricades to block the route from Alexanderplatz to the city. Novelist and poet Theodor Fontane, who worked in the vicinity in a nearby pharmacy, participated in the construction of barricades and later described how he used materials from the Königstädter Theater to barricade Neue Königstraße.[6]

The Königsstadt continued to grow throughout the 19th century, with three-storey developments already existing at the beginning of the century and fourth storeys being constructed from the middle of the century. By the end of the century, most of the buildings were already five storeys high. The large factories and military facilities gave way to housing developments (mainly rental housing for the factory workers who had just moved into the city) and trading houses.

At the beginning of the 1870s, the Berlin administration had the former moat filled to build the Berlin city railway, which was opened in 1882 along with Bahnhof Alexanderplatz ('Alexanderplatz Railway Station').

In 1883–1884, the Grand Hotel, a neo-Renaissance building with 185 rooms and shops beneath was constructed. From 1886 to 1890, Hermann Blankenstein built the police headquarters, a huge brick building whose tower on the northern corner dominated the building. In 1890, a district court at Alexanderplatz was also established.

In 1886, the local authorities built a central market hall west of the rail tracks, which replaced the weekly market on the Alexanderplatz in 1896. During the end of the 19th century, the emerging private traffic and the first horse bus lines dominated the northern part of the square, the southern part (the former parade ground) remained quiet, having green space elements added by garden director Hermann Mächtig in 1889. The northwest of the square contained a second, smaller green space where, in 1895, the 7.5-metre (25 ft) copper Berolina statue by sculptor Emil Hundrieser was erected.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Alexanderplatz experienced its heyday. In 1901, Ernst von Wolzogen founded the first German cabaret, the Überbrettl, in the former Sezessionsbühne ('Secession stage') at Alexanderstraße 40, initially under the name Bunte Brettl. It was announced as "Kabarett as upscale entertainment with artistic ambitions. Emperor-loyal and market-oriented stands the uncritical amusement in the foreground."

The merchants Hermann Tietz, Georg Wertheim and Hahn opened large department stores on Alexanderplatz: Tietz (1904–1911), Wertheim (1910–1911) and Hahn (1911). Tietz marketed itself as a department store for the Berlin people, whereas Wertheim modelled itself as a department store for the world.

In October 1905, the first section of the Tietz department store opened to the public. It was designed by architects Wilhelm Albert Cremer and Richard Wolffenstein, who had already won second prize in the competition for the construction of the Reichstag building. The Tietz department store underwent further construction phases and, in 1911, had a commercial space of 7,300 square metres (79,000 sq ft) and the longest department store façade in the world at 250 metres (820 ft) in length.[7]

For the construction of the Wertheim department store, by architects Heinrich Joseph Kayser and Karl von Großheim, the Königskolonnaden were removed in 1910 and now stand in the Heinrich von Kleist Park in Schöneberg.

In October 1908, the Haus des Lehrers ('house of teachers') was opened next to the Bunte Brettl at Alexanderstraße 41. It was designed by Hans Toebelmann and Henry Gross. The building belonged to the Berliner Lehrererverein ('teachers’ association'), who rented space on the ground floor of the building out to a pastry shop and restaurant to raise funds for the association. The building housed the teachers' library which survived two world wars, and today is integrated into the library for educational historical research.[7] The rear of the property contained the association's administrative building, a hotel for members and an exhibition hall. Notable events that took place in the hall include the funeral services for Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg on 2 February 1919 and, on 4 December 1920, the Vereinigungsparteitag (Unification Party Congress) of the Communist Party and the USPD.

The First Ordinary Congress of the Communist Workers Party of Germany was held in the nearby Zum Prälaten restaurant, 1–4 August 1920.

Alexanderplatz's position as a main transport and traffic hub continued to fuel its development. In addition to the three U-Bahn underground lines, long-distance trains and S-Bahn trains ran along the Platz's viaduct arches. Omnibuses, horse-drawn from 1877 and, after 1898, also electric-powered trams,[8] ran out of Alexanderplatz in all directions in a star shape. The subway station was designed by Alfred Grenander and followed the colour-coded order of subway stations, which began with green at Leipziger Platz and ran through to dark red.

In the Golden Twenties, Alexanderplatz was the epitome of the lively, pulsating cosmopolitan city of Berlin, rivalled in the city only by Potsdamer Platz. Many of the buildings and rail bridges surrounding the platz bore large billboards that illuminated the night. The Berlin cigarette company Manoli had a famous billboard at the time which contained a ring of neon tubes that constantly circled a black ball. The proverbial "Berliner Tempo" of those years was characterized as "total manoli". Writer Kurt Tucholsky wrote a poem referencing the advert, and the composer Rudolf Nelson made the legendary Revue Total manoli with the dancer Lucie Berber. The writer Alfred Döblin named his novel, Berlin Alexanderplatz, after the square, and Walter Ruttmann filmed his 1927 film parts of Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (Berlin: The Symphony of the Big City) at Alexanderplatz.

The destroyed Alexanderplatz station, May 1945

One of Berlin's largest air-raid shelters during the Second World War was situated under Alexanderplatz. It was built between 1941 and 1943 for the Deutsche Reichsbahn by Philipp Holzmann.[9]

The war reached Alexanderplatz in early April 1945. The Berolina statue had already been removed in 1944 and probably melted down for use in arms production. During the Battle of Berlin, Red Army artillery bombarded the area around Alexanderplatz. The battles of the last days of the war destroyed considerable parts of the historic Königsstadt, as well as many of the buildings around Alexanderplatz.

The Wehrmacht had entrenched itself within the tunnels of the underground system. Hours before fighting ended in Berlin on 2 May 1945, troops of the SS detonated explosives inside the north–south S-Bahn tunnel under the Landwehr Canal to slow the advance of the Red Army towards Berlin's city centre. The entire tunnel flooded, as well as large sections of the U-Bahn network via connecting passages at the Friedrichstraße underground station. Many of those seeking shelter in the tunnels were killed.[9] Of the then 63.3 km (39.3 miles) of subway tunnel, around 19.8 km (12.3 mi) were flooded with more than one million cubic meters (260,000,000 US gal) of water.

Before a planned reconstruction of the entire Alexanderplatz could take place, all the war ruins needed to be demolished and cleared away. A popular black market emerged within the ruined area, which the police raided several times a day.

Reconstruction planning for post-war Berlin gave priority to the dedicated space to accommodate the rapidly growing motor traffic in inner-city thoroughfares. This idea of a traffic-orientated city was already based on considerations and plans by Ludwig Hilberseimer and Le Corbusier from the 1930s.[9]

The Press Cafe in 1977. The mural displaying the Marxist view of the press has been covered over by commercial advertising.

The Fernsehturm Berlin seen from a distance

Alexanderplatz has been subject to redevelopment several times in its history, most recently during the 1960s, when it was turned into a pedestrian zone and enlarged as part of the German Democratic Republic's redevelopment of the city centre. It is surrounded by several notable structures including the Fernsehturm (TV Tower).

During the Peaceful Revolution of 1989, the Alexanderplatz demonstration on 4 November 1989 was the largest demonstration in the history of the German Democratic Republic. Protests starting 15 October and peaked on 4 November with an estimated 200,000 participants who called on the government of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany to step down and demanded a free press, the opening of the borders and their right to travel. Speakers were Christa Wolf, Stefan Heym, Friedrich Schorlemmer, Heiner Müller, Lothar Bisky, Christoph Hein and Steffie Spira. The protests continued and culminated in the unexpected Fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989.[10]

The 4 November 1989 Alexanderplatz demonstration

Ever since German reunification, Alexanderplatz has undergone a gradual process of change with many of the surrounding buildings being renovated. After the political turnaround in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall, socialist urban planning and architecture of the 1970s no longer corresponded to the current ideas of an inner-city square. Investors demanded planning security for their construction projects. After initial discussions with the public, the goal quickly arose to reinstate Alexanderplatz's tram network for better connections to surrounding city quarters. In 1993, an urban planning ideas competition for architects took place to redesign the square and its surrounding area.

In the first phase, there were 16 submissions, five of which were selected for the second phase of the competition. These five architects had to adapt their plans to detailed requirements. For example, the return of the Alex's trams was planned, with the implementation to be made in several stages.

The winner, who was determined on 17 September 1993, was the Berlin architect Hans Kollhoff. Kollhoff's plan was based on Behrens’ design, provided a horseshoe-shaped area of seven- to eight-storey buildings and 150-metre (490 ft) high towers with 42 floors. The Alexanderhaus and the Berolinahaus – both listed buildings – would form the southwestern boundary. Second place went to the design by Daniel Libeskind and Bernd Faskel. The proposal of the architecture firm Kny & Weber, which was strongly based on the horseshoe shape of Wagner, finally won the third place. The design by Kollhoff was chosen on 7 June 1994 by the Berlin Senate as a basis for the further transformation of Alexanderplatz.

In 1993, architect Hans Kollhoff's master plan for a major redevelopment including the construction of several skyscrapers was published.[11]

In 1995, Landesbank Berlin completed the renovation of the Alexanderhaus. In 1998, the first tram returned to Alexanderplatz, and in 1999, the town planning contracts for the implementation of Kollhoff and Timmermann's plans were signed by the landowners and the investors.

Alexanderplatz plan from 2012

View from the TV Tower.

Aerial view with the TV tower

On 2 April 2000, the Senate finally fixed the development plan for Alexanderplatz. The purchase contracts between investors and the Senate Department for Urban Development were signed on 23 May 2002, thus laying the foundations for the development.

The CUBIX multiplex cinema (CineStar Cubix am Alexanderplatz,[12] styled CUBIX[13]), which opened in November 2000, joined the team of Berlin International Film Festival cinemas in 2007, and the festival shows films on three of its screens.[14]

Renovation of the Centrum department store began in 2004, led by Berlin professor of architecture, Josef Paul Kleihues and his son Jan Kleihues. The building was enlarged by about 25 metres (82 ft) and has since operated under the name Galeria Kaufhof.

Beginning with the reconstruction of the Kaufhof department store in 2004, and the biggest underground railway station of Berlin, some buildings were redesigned and new structures built on the square's south-eastern side. Sidewalks were expanded to shrink one of the avenues, a new underground garage was built, and commuter tunnels meant to keep pedestrians off the streets were removed.[11] Between 2005 and 2006, Berolinahaus was renovated and later became a branch of the clothing chain, C&A.

In 2005, the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe began work to extend the tram line from Prenzlauer Allee to Alexanderplatz (Alex II). This route was originally to be opened in 2000 but was postponed several times. After further delays caused by the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the route opened on 30 May 2007.

In February 2006, the redesign of the walk-in plaza began. The redevelopment plans were provided by the architecture firm Gerkan, Marg and Partners and the Hamburg-based company WES-Landschaftsarchitekten. The final plans emerged from a design competition launched by the state of Berlin in 2004. However, the paving work was temporarily interrupted a few months after the start of construction by the 2006 FIFA World Cup and all excavation pits had to be provisionally asphalted over. The construction work could only be completed at the end of 2007.

The renovation of Alexanderplatz U-Bahnhof, the largest Berlin underground station, had been ongoing since the mid-1990s and was finally completed in October 2008.[15]

The Platz was given a pavement of yellow granite, bordered by grey mosaic paving around the buildings. Wall AG modernized the 1920s-era underground toilets at a cost of 750,000 euros. The total redesign cost amounted to around 8.7 million euros.

On 12 September 2007 the Alexa shopping centre opened. It is located in the immediate vicinity of the Platz, on the site of the old Berlin police headquarters. With a 56,200 m² (605,000 sq ft) sales area, it is one of the largest shopping centres in Berlin.

In May 2007, the Texas property development company Hines began building a six-story commercial building named die mitte. The building was built on a plot of 3,900 m² (42,000 sq ft), which, according to the Kollhoff plans, closes the square to the east and thus reduces the area of the Platz. The building was opened on 25 March 2009.

At the beginning of 2007, the construction company Wöhr + Bauer created an underground garage with three levels below the Alexanderstraße, located between the hotel tower and the Elektroindustrie building, which cost 25 million euros to build and provides space for around 700 cars.[16] The opening took place on 26 November 2010.[17] At the same time, the Senate narrowed Alexanderstraße from almost 100 m (330 ft) wide to 58 m (190 ft) wide (328 to 190 ft), thus reducing it to three lanes in each direction.

Behind the Alexanderplatz station, next to the CUBIX cinema in the immediate vicinity of the TV tower, the 30-metre (98 ft) high residential and commercial building, Alea 101, was built between 2012 and 2014.

As of 2014 it as assessed that due to a lack of demand the skyscrapers planned in 1993 were unlikely to be constructed.[11]

In January 2014, a 39-story residential tower designed by Frank Gehry was announced, but this project was put on hold in 2018.[18] The Alexanderplatz area is the largest area for crime in Berlin. As of October 2017, Alexanderplatz was classified a kriminalitätsbelasteter Ort ("crime-contaminated location") by the Berlin Allgemeinen Sicherheits- und Ordnungsgesetz (General Safety and Planning Laws).[19]

The Fountain of Friendship (Brunnen der Völkerfreundschaft) was erected in 1970 during the redesign of Alexanderplatz and inaugurated on October 7. It was created by Walter Womacka and his group of artists. Its water basin has a diameter of 23 meters, it is 6.20 meters high and is built from embossed copper, glass, ceramics and enamel. The water spurts from the highest point and then flows down in spirals over 17 shells, which each have a diameter between one and four meters. After German reunification, it was completely renovated in a metal art workshop during the reconstruction of the Galeria Kaufhof.

Apart from Hackescher Markt, Alexanderplatz is the only existing square in front of one of the medieval gates of Berlin's city wall.