Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin

23 August 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Berlin Reading Time:  6 minutes

Konzerthaus, flanked by the German Cathedral (left) and French Cathedral (right) © Thomas Huntke - www.huntke.de/cc-by-sa-3.0

Konzerthaus, flanked by the German Cathedral (left) and French Cathedral (right)
© Thomas Huntke – www.huntke.de/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Gendarmenmarkt is a square in Berlin, and the site of the Konzerthaus and the French and German Cathedrals. In the centre of the square stands a monumental statue of Germany’s renowned poet Friedrich Schiller. The square was created by Johann Arnold Nering at the end of the seventeenth century as the Linden-Markt and reconstructed by Georg Christian Unger in 1773. The Gendarmenmarkt is named after the cuirassier regiment Gens d’Armes, which had their stables at the square until 1773. During World War II, most of the buildings were badly damaged or destroyed. Today all the buildings have been restored to their former state.   read more…

Theme Week Berlin – Alexanderplatz and Gendarmenmarkt

13 November 2010 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Berlin Reading Time:  12 minutes

© bilderbook.org

© bilderbook.org

Alexanderplatz

The Alex to Berliners, a cattle market in the Middle Ages, a military parade square and an exercise ground for nearby barracks until the mid 19th century – Alexanderplatz is the square named to honour Alexander I, Tsar of Russia, on his visit to Berlin in 1805. It was here that Alfred Döblin took the pulse of the cosmopolitan metropolis portrayed in his 1929 novel “Berlin Alexanderplatz” filmed by Fassbinder for a TV series as a portrait of the bustling city in the 1920s before the imminent Nazi takeover. Fast forward to more recent times, one million people congregated here, on 4 November 1989 to demonstrate against the GDR regime shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall. This was the largest anti-government demonstration in its history.   read more…

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