The Französischer Dom on Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt is home to the Huguenot Museum, a place that traces how French Protestants shaped the city after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Invited by Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, many Huguenots settled in Berlin, bringing skills and trades that were valuable to the kingdom. The museum has been located inside the cathedral since 1929. (Note: it was closed until 2019.)
A striking scene appears in room nine of the museum: an artwork shows Crown Princess Dorothea reacting with surprise—“But he’s a refugee!”—as Pierre Fromery presents a set of exquisite jewels. The moment challenges a common belief of the time that refugees arrived with nothing. Many Huguenots came with craft, capital, and networks, and their presence quickly influenced Berlin’s economy and culture.
The large French community left a mark on the local dialect, Berlinerisch. Everyday expressions absorbed French roots, sometimes in playful or unexpected ways. Kinkerlitzchen is traced to the French quincaillerie, meaning hardware or small wares. Muckefuck is often linked to mocca faux, or artificial coffee, though linguists do not universally agree on this origin. These words, and others like them, speak to centuries of contact between languages.
The Französischer Dom itself was designed to echo the Huguenots’ main church in Charenton, near Paris, which was destroyed in 1688. Its architecture stands as a reminder of loss and continuity: a familiar silhouette rebuilt in a new city, where the community formed institutions, worshiped, and preserved its history in the museum that the cathedral now contains.
Source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Cathedral,_Berlin
This heritage-protected public bathing beach which opened in 1907 is one of the largest inland lidos in Europe and has a 1275-m-long sand beach, a capacity for up to 30,000 guests and a popular nudist area.
This museum is perhaps something you wouldn't expect in a major metropolis and truth be told it owes its existence in part to partition (when West Berlin schoolkids couldn't go to the surrounding Brandenburg countryside to experience rural life). Opened in 1975 it is an attempt to recreate as faithfully as feasible a medieval farming village from roughly the era of Berlin's founding (12th or 13th century). The village that existed at this place 800 years ago was not called "Düppel" back then as that name was only applied in the 1860s after the Prussian victory over Denmark at Dybbøl which was rendered into German as "Düppel" and applied to the area to honor a member of the Prussian royal family who owned land there.
This museum describes the procedures applied by the East German secret police. Every Friday to Monday, there is a guided tour in English at 15:00 (5€).
Designed by Daniel Libeskind with an excellent exposition on the Jewish life in Berlin and the impact of the Holocaust. You can easily spend a day here. There is a metal scanner and other security features you'd rather expect at an airport than a museum.
Started in the 15th century and finished in the mid-18th century, the baroque palace was the residence of electors, kings and emperors until 1918, when it became a museum. The palace was badly damaged during World War II and later razed in 1950, replaced by the GDR with a modernist Palast der Republik. The Palast was in turn gradually dismantled at the turn of the century, as it was discovered to contain asbestos and its former function of housing the GDR parliament became obsolete. Berlin has started in June 2013 construction on a new version of its historic Stadtschloss. The Schlüterhof, an inner courtyard, was also rebuilt. The building opened with a delay in 2021 with museums inside and a roof terrace with a good view. Among the Berlin museums this is perhaps the most controversial due to reconstruction of a monarchist palace being seen as a questionable political statement and due to the fact that many of the exhibits were sourced from German colonies under ethically questionable circumstances leading to demands to return some or all of them to their places of origin.
More than 30 million objects in the scientific collection and a fascinating exhibition in one of the most significant institutions of its kind in the world. Some parts still under construction.
An eerie memorial to victims of the Nazi regime built on the place of a former execution room, where nearly 2900 people where put to death between 1933 and 1945.
Oderberger Straße is known for its beautiful and generous Gründerzeit architecture, as well as its cafés and restaurants. Since before Germany's reunification the street has been the desired place for alternative folks and avant-gardists, but the area has seen continual gentrification since the early 2000s.
Small terrace on the top of the Park Inn, publicly accessible. Take the elevator to the 40th floor, and follow the signs up the stairs. Pay the attendant who also serves beer and coffee. Great views of the Fernsehturm. In the summer, consider base jumping off the roof with Jochen Schweizer. It is often closed in bad/windy weather, so look for a notice posted near the elevator that the terrace is closed.
From 1941, 12,000 tons of concrete in a 15-m-high and 20-m-diameter cylinder were built to test the load-bearing capacity of the Berlin soils (turns out glacial sands are no good basis for gargantuan architecture) for Albert Speer's Germania buildings. Too massive for later blasting, this is one of the more bizarre remains of the Third Reich.
House museum on Max Liebermann, German painter and printmaker. Has about 15 Lieberman paintings.
Features many objects and even whole rooms in Wilhelminian style. Only accessible by guided tour (English tours can be arranged).