Tiergarten

Tiergarten is a small, devastated district squashed up against the Wall. It is named after the parks, Grosser (Greater) and Kleiner (Lesser) Tiergarten. Its most well-known landmark is the Victory Column, which sits in the middle of the Grosser Stern (Great Star) intersection where five main roads intersect. Tiergarten was once a prestigious district—the seat of the German Parliament—before the Allied air raids reduced it to a pile of burning rubble. Now the old hotels and embassies lined up along Tiergartenstrasse are mostly abandoned, serving as havens for squatters and miscreants. The Brandenburg Gate looms over the district from the other side of the Wall. This section of the Wall is marked by graffiti—colourful, chaotic messages in stark contrast to its environment of devastation and decay.

The residents of Tiergarten live in cramped low-cost housing. Most of them are unemployed or holding down minimum wage jobs, barely eking out a living. The area around the park is rife with crime and social problems. Old, dated flyers litter the streets; the graffiti here tells a story to those who know how to decipher them. Gangs mark their territory with spray-painted tags, above politically-charged symbols and commentary, above old signs left by the Soviet army during their occupation of Berlin.

## Locations

### **Kurfuerstenstrasse**

Kurfuerstenstrasse brings out the worst in Berlin. It is a road parallel to Tauentzienstrasse, on the southern border of Tiergarten with Schoeneberg. The road curves around the zoo and branches off to Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten. The buildings here have been reconstructed after the war but badly maintained; their structures are riddled with rust, peeling paint, leaky plumbing, with the windows broken or boarded up. Every street corner has a dealer, and every block stands an undernourished, wide-eyed girl in fishnets and smeared-on makeup. Among those with more unsavoury (and/or illegal) tastes, the street is called “Babystrich”. 3am. at night, it is not uncommon to see people sitting on the sidewalks, homeless or high or both.

#### **Sound**

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All the cool kids know about Sound, “Europe's first modern discotheque”. Its iconic posters feature blood red lips in front of a radiating rainbow pattern. The club is low-ceilinged and housed in an old converted car park. A hypnotic throbbing of its strobe lights draws in patrons to the dark club interior. For its claim of modernity, the club is equipped with laser projections, fog machines, and a professional video recorder.

A novelty at the time, entrants to the club were given a wrist stamp with ink that was only visible under black light. The crowd moves like zombies, undulating to some slow internal rhythm. Pushers weave their way through the crowd, each peddling their own version of escape from reality. The toilets have saloon-style doors to discourage shooting up—but people still do it anyway.

***Back-room Cinema***

Within the discotheque is a small room set up as a cinema. A projector shows classic films and obscure arthouse productions. For a small fee, headsets can be rented to listen to the audio. The chairs are simple folding chairs set up around the room. The room is kept dark and the headsets also provide privacy for those who want to hold a conversation.

### **Potsdamer Platz**

Potsdamer Platz is an urban wasteland smack dab in the middle of the "death strip". The Berlin Wall envelopes this traffic square almost entirely. Once the busy city centre of pre-war Berlin, the Allies split Potsdamer Platz into three, with the border of the Soviet occupation zone cutting right through it. The section of the death strip here is exceptionally wide. Buildings have been levelled and replaced with barbed wire fences and lines of anti-tank fortification. The guards have orders to shoot on sight, to anyone found on the wrong side of the wall.

Over the past decade, all the buildings have been demolished except two—Weinhaus Huth, a former winery built with a steel skeleton, and Hotel Esplanade, once the grandest hotel in Berlin. The Hotel Esplanade can still be accessed with police permission. People have used it for shows, events, or film locations. Most of the time the buildings stay empty, home to only a small community of squatters who live under the wall.

#### **Hotel Esplanade**

On the Tiergarten side of Potsdamer Platz are the two remaining buildings—Weinhaus Huth and Hotel Esplanade. The hotel was built in the Belle Epoque style, with intricate stonework still seen among the crumbling ruins. The wings of the hotel surround an inner courtyard, overgrown with thorny hedges that snake their way around the dried-up water features and ornaments. The few rooms that are relatively undamaged are the Kaisersaal, the breakfast hall, the stairwell and the washrooms. In the 1920's, celebrities like Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo dined in the breakfast hall and rented rooms among its master suites. Its tea and dancing afternoons were the talk of 'society'. Kaiser Wilhelm II and his retinue hosted events here, in the luxurious hall of the Kaisersaal.

Nowadays the hotel is one of a pair of buildings standing in this ruined wasteland. For its atmosphere, people have used it for shows, events, or film locations, for which police permission needs to be sought. Most of the time, access to the building is heavily restricted. On some nights, shadowy figures can be seen milling about, which are usually assumed to be squatters or hooligans.

***Kaisersaal***

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The Emperor's Hall is one of the only rooms preserved in this ruined building. It sits facing the courtyard, and can be reached after one wades through what is left of the reception hall—charred walls, fallen sandstone blocks, and bits of ongoing renovations fitted with scaffolding or tarpaulin.

The set-up of the Kaisersaal speaks of an erstwhile splendour. The walls are powder blue in colour and decorated with intricate Rococo stuccowork. A large crystal chandelier is the focal point of the room. Elegant long-legged chairs are grouped around small tables, as if laid out for afternoon tea. There is a disused fireplace and fake potted plants placed in corners of the room.

### **Tiergartenstrasse**

Tiergartenstrasse follows the southern boundaries of Tiergarten Park. One side of the road faces trees and shaded garden paths. The other side of the road lies former embassy buildings and several of Berlin's cultural institutions—the Berlin Philharmonie, the Berlin State Library, and around the corner, the Gemaeldegalerie and the Neue Nationalgalerie. This collection of institutions is called the “Kulturforum”. The museum district is concentrated around the eastern end of the street closer to the wall.

The old embassy buildings are badly in need of repair and home only to squatters. As West Berlin is no longer the capital of West Germany, most of the embassies have moved to Bonn. The buildings along the street are weathered and defaced by graffiti. A third of the buildings are condemned; restoration work is ongoing but costly, subject to snail-paced bureaucracy and budget limitations.

#### **Berlin Philharmonie**

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This concert hall was built for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in the sixties. The hall can seat 2,240 people, and is housed in a singular building with a tent-like shape. The roof ridge rises in asymmetrical peaks, and has a face constructed from bright yellow rectangular tiles. The concert hall has a unique, modern design. The hall is shaped like a pentagon with seating areas surrounding the stage on all sides. The rows of seating increases in height like the terraces of a vineyard, which is termed “vineyard-style”. Spectators view the orchestra pit from an elevated position. The hall is known for its unparalleled acoustics; the differently-angled walls from the gallery help reflect sound and numerous diffusers and reflectors hang from the ceiling.

#### **Gemaeldegalerie**

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Turning the corner on to Matthaeikirchplatz (in front of St. Mattaeus Church) is a classical art gallery, the Gemaeldegalerie. This gallery is known for its collection of priceless 13th--18th century European art. Among its displays are the works of artists such as Raphael, Botticelli, Titian, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Eyck, and Vermeer. The building is a low-lying rectangular block with an exterior of glass and clean white walls. The main hall has a sparse display of sculptures and plenty of space for foot traffic. The halls have polished wooden floors and minimalistic white walls so as to not detract from the paintings.

#### **Neue Nationalgalerie**

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This modern art gallery displays the works of artists from 20th-century onwards. Among its highlights are artists from the Cubism, Expressionism, Bauhaus, and Surrealism schools. The works of Picasso, Kirchner, Miro, and Kandinsky, among others, are well-represented in the collection.

The gallery has a design that focuses on optimising natural light. The entrance hall is located on an upper gallery, located on a raised platform and accessed by three flights of stairs. The roof of the upper gallery is a pre-stressed steel roof plate that cantilevers out from the main body of the building and supported by eight cruciform columns. The walls are constructed completely from glass. The lower gallery is three-quarters below ground and has only one glazed surface, facing the museum's sculpture garden. The glass lets in natural light which plays off from its reflective floor.

### **The Tiergarten**

The Tiergarten is a large city park. The arterial roads of Berlin converge upon its centre, to the Siegessaeule—the Victory Column—upon which displayed the gilded statue of Nike. An eight-lane boulevard runs from east to west, called Strasse de 17. Juni, named after the date of the East Berlin worker's uprising in 1953. The boulevard is the western continuation of Unter den Linden. At its eastern end over the Wall is the Brandenburg Gate; it then passes through the Soviet War Memorial, through the Victory Column intersection, and then terminates at Charlottenburg's Ernst-Reuter-Platz.

The park is full of grandiose, patriotic statues built by the Prussians. Statues of monarchs, generals, and monuments to military victories can be found throughout the park—most of them stolen or broken, laying on their side. After the war, much of the wooded area was felled and the trees used for firewood. The waterways are filled with silt, and bridges and garden ornaments broken.

South-west of the Tiergarten is the Zoologischer Garten of Berlin. The Berlin Zoo is under restoration, with not many animals surviving after the war. Schloss Bellevue, on the banks of the River Spree, is a presidential palace that is currently under renovation. In the late fifties, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (“House of the World's Cultures”), a hall for performing arts, was built in the north-east corner of Tiergarten. It has a futuristic, disc-like shape, prompting the locals to call it “the pregnant oyster”.

#### **Brandenburg Gate**

The Gate is another monument to the ambition of the Prussians. Twelve towering Doric columns form the gate, supporting a thick marble architrave with the chariot-drawn bronze sculpture of Victoria, the goddess of victory.

The Brandenburg Gate lies on the other side of the Wall, where the concrete structure loops outwards to enclose the gate in its entirety. This area is empty as it is in the middle of no-man's-land. Behind it is some Czech hedgehog fortifications and the desolate landscape of East Berlin. The area is patrolled by tanks and soldiers. The flag of the GDR is raised on top of the statue, and flanking either side of the gate are two red flags of the Soviets.

#### **Reichstag Ruins**

The giant, skeletal ruins of the Reichstag lay in some forgotten corner of Tiergarten park. It is north of the Brandenburg Gate, reachable by foot from the Victory Column and in close proximity to the Berlin Wall. The parliament building of the German Empire was magnificent, with two symmetrical wings and a steel and glass cupola crowning the building. Its entrance arch features an elaborate frieze supported by six Doric columns. The building was damaged by air raid and fire, and due to its lack of use, there had been no real effort to restore it. The pockmarked walls are charred and crumbling; the dome is a half-collapsed steel frame with shattered glass. On the walls are Soviet graffiti written in Cyrillic script, among them are slogans such as “Hitler kaputt”, or declarations left for posterity—“Ivan was here”.

#### **Victory Column**

The golden statue of Victoria raises her staff and laurels, her wings spread in flight, above this intersection of arterial roads in West Berlin. The column was built by the Prussians to commemorate military victory, first in the Danish-Prussian War, and later against Austria and its German allies, and France. The base is polished red granite—a hall of pillars with a glass mosaic. The column is made from solid blocks of sandstone and decorated with the cannon barrels captured from Prussia's fallen enemies.

The intersection has the shape of a five-pointed star, and was known as Grosser Stern. There is a viewing platform at the foot of the statue, popular with tourists. The column can be accessed from four pedestrian tunnels.