Berlinische Galerie is a museum devoted to modern art, photography, and architecture, with a collection that centers on work created in Berlin. Housed in a former industrial building, the museum offers spacious galleries where paintings, installations, photographs, and design objects share a common stage. The focus on the city’s own creative output gives the collection a distinctive voice, tracing how artists have responded to Berlin’s rapid changes over the last century.
The collection spans movements that shaped the city’s cultural identity, from early modern experiments to postwar breakthroughs and contemporary practices. Expressionist canvases, Dada collages, and works from the New Objectivity movement reveal the restless spirit of the 1920s. Postwar pieces show a divided city’s tensions and hopes, while more recent works reflect reunification and the evolving urban landscape. This local lens connects artworks to specific neighborhoods, studios, and historic moments.
Photography holds a central place, charting Berlin’s streets, architecture, and people across decades. Documentary series, avant‑garde experiments, and portraiture capture the city’s shifting identity—from rubble and reconstruction to techno culture and creative studios. The museum’s photographic holdings highlight how cameras have recorded social change and forged new visual languages in Berlin.
Architecture displays explore bold ideas tested in the city’s fabric. Plans, models, and drawings introduce modernist housing concepts, postwar rebuilding, and contemporary redevelopment. Design objects and urban studies add context, showing how everyday life, public space, and technology interact in Berlin’s built environment.
Rotating exhibitions bring fresh takes on the collection and feature Berlin-based and international artists tied to the city. The building’s clean lines and high ceilings support large installations and multimedia works, while quieter rooms allow close viewing of drawings, prints, and photographs. Together, the displays create a dialogue between past and present, studio and street, intimate detail and sweeping cityscape.
Source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlinische_Galerie
Heritage listed Art Nouveau railway station and charming surrounding city square.
It was the only border crossing between East and West Berlin that permitted foreigners passage. Residents of East and West Berlin were not allowed to use it. This contributed to Checkpoint Charlie's mythological status as a meeting place for spies and other shady individuals. Checkpoint Charlie gained its name from the phonetic alphabet; checkpoints "Alpha" and "Bravo" were at the autobahn checkpoints Helmstedt and Dreilinden respectively. Checkpoint Charlie's atmosphere was not improved at all on 27 Oct 1961 when the two Cold War superpowers chose to face each other down for a day. Soviet and American tanks stood approximately 200 m apart, making an already tense situation worse. Now the remains of the Berlin Wall have been moved to permit building, including construction of the American Business Center and other institutions.At the intersection of Zimmerstraße and Friedrichstraße (U-Bahn Kochstraße U6) is the famous "You Are Leaving the American Sector" sign. The actual guardhouse from Checkpoint Charlie is now housed at the Allied Museum on Clayallee. For a more interesting exhibit go to the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie. This is a private museum with kitschy memorabilia from the Wall and the devices GDR residents used to escape the East (including a tiny submarine!). There are also people who set up booths here offering to stamp your passport with souvenir stamps in exchange for a small fee. You are highly advised not to put these stamps in your passport, as these are not official stamps and could invalidate it. Instead, bring along an expired passport or a small booklet to put the stamps in.
The longest stretch of the Berlin Wall still in existence, painted by artists in 1991 and restored in 2009, after years of decay. At Mühlenstraße, next to the river Spree. The murals are painted on the east side of the wall after the fall of Communism; so they are not from the Cold War, during which murals could only be painted on the west side. Make sure not to miss the famous mural of a car seemingly crashing through the wall with Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker kissing above it. It is actually on the back side of the gallery (it is facing away from the street.) It is just inside the entrance of the Eastern Comfort Hostel, near the east end of the gallery.
Museum of Contemporary Art located in former Hamburger Bahnhof train station. Big halls filled with artworks made since 1960s. In 2004 Rieckhallen, former Lehrter Bahnhof, was opened and now provides exhibition space for the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection. Free public guided tours (in English): Sa and Su at 12:00.
Also known as "der hohle Zahn" (the Hollow Tooth), this church in Breitscheidplatz is a memorial to Kaiser Wilhelm, and one of Berlin's most famous landmarks. Thick walls and plain decor mark it as neo-Romanesque, but with what's left of the Gedächtniskirche, it's tough to distinguish it as any one style. Allied bombing left only one tower standing on 22 November 1943, but a new location for worship designed by Egon Eiermann was completed in December 1961 (it's the octagonal structure with blue stained glass windows). There is a small memorial museum beneath the tower filled with artifacts from the original church, which was built from 1891-95 to architect Franz Schwechten's specifications.Controversy arose after the war over the various options presented by the half-ruined cathedral - should it be torn down completely and rebuilt? Or should the destroyed sections be left standing as a memorial? The four major sections of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche (central space, foyer, new tower and chapel) surround the ruined tower of the old church bridge and show the time gap between old and new. Mosaics and other remnants from the old church serve as a monument against war.
Built in 1542. An impressive traditional country estate with stately architecture, it is an enclave of untouched regional cultural history and architectonic epochs. The 80-hectare mixed forest also provides a wide network of paths for walking and rambling.
Museum established in 1888, with a collection of 3,500 instruments.
A splendid 15th-century Gothic church with many fine accoutrements.
Features many objects and even whole rooms in Wilhelminian style. Only accessible by guided tour (English tours can be arranged).
The old town of Köpenick is surrounded by water. Especially noteworthy are the Köpenick Palace which houses a museum of applied art and the Neogothic town hall.
The large square in front of the Brandenburg Gate contains the French and American embassies, the rebuilt Hotel Adlon, and the new building of the Academy of Arts.