Charlottenburg will never reclaim the role it won when Berlin was divided. Then, it was a showcase enjoying massive subsidies from the Bonn government. The aim was always to show West Berlin in contrast to the East so visitors to both would always leave with a positive impression of the West and would always support the Bonn government in pushing for closer integration between West Berlin and the Federal Republic. The Kurfürstendamm was a mile-long advertisement for capitalism; excellence could be taken for granted in every shop. Now it has to compete with Mitte and Prenzlauerberg. However, it still has its name, taken from the palace, some of which has survived since 1700. It also has many of the institutions that made West Berlin so famous: the Gedächtniskirche (Memorial Church) was on every postcard, as was KaDeWe, Berlin's most famous department store, or the Kranzler-Eck, its equally famous café. Only since 1990 can it reveal its underground city, built in readiness for a nuclear attack, and now part of the Story of Berlin museum. Side streets are as important as the avenues. Look there for Jugendstil architecture, but equally for glass temples such as the "shrine" to Ludwig Erhard, the German Chancellor, credited with the 1960s’ economic miracle. SightsGedächtniskirche (Memorial Church) Breitscheidplatz. Daily 0900-1900 for the church, Mon-Sat 1000-1600 for the exhibition. S-Bahn and U-Bahn Zoologischer Garten. The full name for this church is the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächt- niskirche as it was built shortly after the Kaiser’s death in 1888. Only the framework of the tower remained in 1945 and it seemed logical to take it down and rebuild the site from scratch. Discussion raged for years and on one occasion 50,000 people came to demonstrate in favour of keeping what had by then been called the "hollow tooth". Only in 1961 was a plan agreed, with the tower staying and the current single-storey honeycomb being added so that worship could again take place here. The exhibition in the tower was assembled only in 1987; it contains a few remnants from the earlier building, including some mosaics and photographs of the 1943 devastation. The church became what would now be called a logo for West Berlin, a surprising symbol in view of the modern image the town in other respects wanted to create as a contrast to its Eastern neighbour. Breitscheidplatz S-Bahn and U-Bahn Zoologischer Garten. Breitscheidplatz shows Berlin at its brashest and brightest. Neon lights abound, cafés stay open through most of the night, and by day street markets and shops belie the alleged financial crisis that Berlin is supposed to have suffered since 2000 or so. The Mercedes-Benz star continues to rotate from the 22-storey Europa building. This was constructed in 1965 to impress all visitors and locals with the stability of West Berlin at a time when it felt increasingly threatened from the East. Inside, the casino is one of a hundred outlets for spending money although it is possible to admire for free the fountains playing. Mammon has certainly taken over the Breitscheidplatz from God. KaDeWe Tauentzienstr. 21-24, http://www.kadewe.de Mon-Fri 0930-2000, Sat 0930-1600. U-Bahn Wittenbergplatz. Many a learned book has been written on the downfall of East Germany, but probably these three syllables did more damage to the regime than any nuclear threat from the West, or any internal dissident. KaDeWe is the popular abbreviation for Kaufhaus des Westens which has kept its reputation as Berlin's best department store through every change of regime. "West" came to have tremendous political significance during the era of division but the name has always been the same since it was founded in 1907. Then, as now, the food hall on the top floor is the major draw, not that it actually uses such a down-to-earth name. It is of course the "Feinschmecker Etage" (gourmet floor). The worrying statistics for the East German Government were the 1,000 varieties of wurst (sausage) always available here and the West German media ensured that this was never forgotten "drüben" (over there). Statistics for wine or spices could be written off as being irrelevant to day-to-day life. Wurst appears daily on every German dining table and if capitalism produces it better than socialism, the public would see it as a better system. KaDeWe has succeeded by not becoming too elitist. Ordinary shoppers, in the best sense of the term, are to be seen there. It mixes Berliners as few other places can do. Being so much part of the establishment, KaDeWe of course also now has a Reichstag-style glass dome, and a restaurant for looking down on the rest of the world. It is hardly necessary to comment on the quality or variety of the food there. Its extensive menus can be checked on the website. Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum Fasanenstr. 24, http://www.kaethe-kollwitz.de Wed-Mon 1100-1800. E5. U-Bahn Uhland Str. It is hard to picture a more inappropriate address than this for an exhibition of the work of Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945). Fasanen- strasse is the Jermyn Street of Berlin where good taste and affluence have always intermingled. Käthe Kollwitz, however, devoted her life to painting the poor. She wrote in her autobiography: "The bourgeoisie do not appeal to me, whereas the workers affect me deeply." She lived in Prenzlauerberg, at the time one of the most deprived areas of Berlin. The street where she spent 50 years now carries her name. This museum covers all that time and she hammered out a pacifist theme until the end, although the Nazis banned public displays of her work towards the end of her life. She would never relax and sadness pervades all her work. Most of her work was with drawings, not paintings, since the sadness she wished to portray was more effective in that medium. Several works centre on the theme of mothers losing their sons in war – her own died at the front in 1915 – and of mothers too poor to feed their families. Story of Berlin Kurfürstendamm 207, http://www.story-of-berlin.de Daily 1000-2000 with last admission at 1800. E9.30. The whole museum is in English. U-Bahn Uhland Str., S-Bahn Savigny-Platz. To have an indulgent visit, linger in the 19th-century area when most wars that intruded were successful for the Prussians. To be shocked, stay in the 20th-century zone. Several senses are tested here too. No visitor forgets their trample over the charred books avidly burnt in 1933 f or the smashing glass from Kristall- nacht (when thousands of Jewish synagogues and businesses were destroyed, 100 people died and thousands were arrested) five years later. In a happier mode, they will remember just as clearly the bank of television screens announcing the opening of the Wall in 1989. The bomb shelter below the building can be visited only on guided tours, which take place on the hour. What a pity they were only built during the Cold War, so were never used, rather than a few years earlier when they could have been fully occupied every night for two years. This one is a complete underground town, totally cut off from the world above to prevent radiation seeping in. The largest room is the hospital, the smallest the armoury. Schloss Charlottenburg (Charlottenburg Palace) Tue-Sun 1000-1700. The main palace is open year-round, but some of the outer buildings close between 1 Nov and 31 Mar. E7. Admission covers most of the buildings in the grounds, though entry times there can sometimes vary slightly from those of the main palace. U-Bahn Richard-Wagner-Platz or Sophie-Charlotte-Platz. This palace needs to be appreciated from a distance just as much as from its grounds. Although the U-Bahn station Sophie- Charlotte-Platz is not the nearest, do not begrudge the kilometre walk or so from there along Schlossstrasse. However good or bad the weather, the baroque cupola will stand out and entice you closer – note the Goddess of Fortune on top acting as a weather-vain. This gradual approach is also the best way to take in the 500-yard wide façade. The statue of Friedrich Wilhelm I in the central courtyard has had, even on Berlin standards, a chequered history since the war. Originally located outside the Royal Palace in the East, it was moved to Potsdam for safe- keeping, sunk in a barge on the Tegel Lake in 1946 where it stayed for six years before being brought up and placed here as an alternative to returning it to East Berlin. At the height of the Cold War, the Charlottenburg Palace was the only secure legacy from the 500-year history of the Hohenzollern Prussian royal family. Queen Charlotte (1669-1705) was the wife of Friedrich I (1657-1713) and the first, relatively small, palace was built as her summer residence. It was expanded after 1701 when Friedrich ceased to be a mere prince and had crowned himself King of Prussia. The palace became a congenial escape for her from her totally incompatible husband. He was boorish and vain, she cultured and modest, and she surrounded herself here with the best and the brightest from the worlds of art and philosophy. She died when she was 36 years old and the original name of the Palace, Lietzowburg, was changed in her memory. Subsequent kings spared just as little expense in enlarging this palace as they did with the Royal Palace in the town centre and with Potsdam. The surrounding area was totally dependent on the use the royal family made of it. When the Hohenzollerns were losing wars, the villagers had to return to agriculture. When wars were won, several hundred congenial jobs would then result here. The palace can be seen as a one-stop shop for two centuries of German architecture from 1700 to 1900. It mirrors the relationship with France throughout that time. The influence of Versailles is clear, both in the buildings and in the very formal gardens behind them. Inside, the Knobelsdorff Flügel is the section with the most elaborate interior, and the most lavish displays. The Weisse Saal (White Hall) was the banqueting and throne room combined. The decoration in the 50-yard long Golden Gallery, depicting the four seasons and the four elements, is based on a design by the French artist Antoine Watteau. Frederick the Great was an admirer of his and eight paintings of his are exhibited in the palace. (A wide range of 19th-century German paintings, including those of Caspar David Friedrich, which used to be shown here are now in the Alte Nationalgalerie on Museumsinsel) The Porzellankabinett (Porcelain Gallery) concentrates on blue and white designs from both China and Japan. The entire wall, from floor to ceiling is covered with porcelain. The Museum für Vor und Frühgeschichte (Museum of Pre and Early History) is housed in the former palace theatre. Many of the finds stem from excavations needed to build the German motorway system. The high point of the collection is what the famous, or perhaps infamous, Heinrich Schliemann brought back from Troy in the mid-19th century after he first discovered the site. Some of the items are copies as it was assumed the originals had been destroyed in the war, but in the early 1990s they turned up in the cellars of the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Outside, in the gardens, a number of buildings should be visited. The Mausoleum was built in 1810 after the death of Queen Luise, wife of Friedrich Wilhelm III, and was then extended in 1841 to bury him, and again in 1890 to bury three more members of the family. Architecturally, the building stands out for its classical design, in contrast to the baroque and rococo of the palace. The Schinkel Pavilion, also classical, was modelled specifically on a villa in Naples where Friedrich Wilhelm II had stayed in 1822. Particularly incongruous for Germany are its small square rooms and the outdoor rather than indoor marble furniture placed within them. More appropriate are the drawings and paintings by Schinkel and by several contemporaries of his which are also displayed here. The Belvedere combines a classical and a baroque façade with neither being overpowering. It is hard to believe it is the work of the same architect who designed the Brandenburg Gate – Carl Gotthard Langhans. Do look to the top of the cupola to see three cherubs holding up a basket of flowers. Officially it was a teahouse but it came to be used more for the royal family's extra-marital affairs. The location of the Belvedere beside the Spree provided a discreet entry and exit point. Now it houses a 19th-century porcelain collection from KPR (Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur), the company that held the royal warrant. A mere glance at the variety and skill of their work shows why they had no competitors. Ägyptisches Museum (Egyptian Museum) Schlossstr. 70. Tue-Sun 1000-1800. E6, free first Sun in the month. S-Bahn Westend, U-Bahn Richard-Wagner-Platz. The best articles in this field were in East Berlin during the division so what is here is largely what happened to have been hidden away from the Pergamon towards the end of the war. It is supplemented with some gifts by the Egyptian Government made later in return for the help given by the West Germans in the building of the Aswan Dam. Many visitors come for just one item – the 14th-century BC bust of Queen Nefertiti, and then take a cursory glance at the day-to-day ephemera of ancient Egypt which make up much of the remaining collection. Sammlung Berggruen (Berggruen Collection) Schlossstr. 1. Tue-Fri 1000-1800, Sat-Sun 1100-1800. E6, free first Sun in the month. S-Bahn Westend, U-Bahn Richard-Wagner-Platz. This collection is often now simply known as the Picasso Museum because of the predominance of his works there. However, this is perhaps unfair on the founder Heinz Berggruen (b 1914). He is one of the very few members of the pre-war Jewish refugee community who returned to Berlin; even fewer have been as philanthropic as he has been. He left for America in 1936 with 10 Deutschmarks in his pocket. After the war, he set up a gallery in Paris which is how he came to know Picasso so well. The collection, which opened in 1996 in the former royal barracks, has been sold to the city for much less than the price offered by American museums so is now a permanent feature of the city. About E100,000,000 seems a lot of money but is nothing compared to what Berggruen could have made elsewhere. There are 70 different works of Picasso from all periods of his life. There cannot be many other galleries where paintings by Braque, Cézanne and van Gogh seem almost to be a side show. Even the whole room devoted to Paul Klee cannot approach the breadth of the Picasso collection. It is an ironic end to Berggruen's career that he has returned to found, in what was the Nazi capital, a gallery devoted 100% to entartete Kunst (degenerate art), the generic term the Nazis used for any works not in official favour. Bröhan-Museum Schlossstr. 1a, T 326 906 00, http://www.broehan-museum.de Tue-Sun 1000-1800. E4. S-Bahn Westend, U-Bahn Richard-Wagner-Platz. Just in case any visitors arrive with any misapprehensions about the exhibits, the museum is subtitled Museum for Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Functionalism 1889-1939. However, whatever anyone's expectations, few will regret immersing themselves in the best taste from all the applied arts over these 50 years. German industrialist Karl Bröhan only began to assemble this collection in the mid-1960s. For about a decade he showed it privately in his villa but then in 1982 he gave the entire collection of 2,500 items to the city of Berlin. His aim is to show how important artistry can be in all items of day-to-day life. Come here as an antidote to the rococo at the palace; the materials are commonplace in the furniture as much as in the fabrics or in the china; there is not a single item which could not be used on a day-to-day basis but would anyone now dare to do so? 1939 brought functionalism with a very small "f" to the whole of Europe so it is appropriate the collection ends with that year. Kulturforum Cultural Centre. Tue-Fri 1000-1800, Sat-Sun 1100-1800. Late night opening on Thu til 2200. E6 for all museums combined. S-Bahn and U-Bahn Potsdamer Platz. With Museumsinsel in East Berlin, West Berlin soon felt the need to have a centre of its own to compete. Inevitably it had to be bigger and more extensive so it would cover music as well as art. Planning started in the 1950s but the building of the Wall in 1961 accelerated the process since for several years afterwards not only were Easterners kept from the West, but Westerners were not allowed into the East. The location was, however, dictated by the politics of the 1950s when the border was still open. The West wanted a cultural inducement as near to the border as it was practical to build. Ironically several of the buildings have a very East German look about them with their use of concrete, chandeliers and pale wood plus the ample space in all the reception areas. The Kulturforum now competes in a sense with the Potsdamer Platz; here is a predictable artistic and musical environment whereas there, anything goes! Philharmonie Kulturforum. See above for opening hours and prices. Tours of the building take place during the day both in English and in German at 1300. Free. The Philharmonie, where Simon Rattle has presided since the summer of 2002, is best known for its circular auditorium with "vineyard" seating that accommodates around 2,200, but where no seat is more than 30 m from the conductor. It is a surprising modern work bearing in mind the architect Hans Scharoun was nearly 70 years old when he completed it in 1963. His background as a town planner in the desperate years immediately after the war comes out in many aspects of the design. There are no intimate corners, no place for nature, and certainly none for luxury. The assumption is clearly that at least 1,000 people will always be inside and will always be a collective. Scharoun has had one street beside the Philharmonie named after him, and the other is named after its most famous conductor, Herbert von Karajan. Gemäldegalerie (Picture Gallery) Kulturforum. See Kulturforum This gallery is one of the very few to rival the National Gallery in London for the breadth of its collection, but has the space for every single picture to be enjoyed. The gallery will probably be the final addition to the Kulturforum, having been completed in 1998 to house a collection that had been split between the Bode Museum in the East, and the Dahlem Museum in the West. It is an impartial European union, covering the 13th-18th centuries, with paintings by Botticelli, Cranach the Elder, Dürer, Gainsborough and Rembrandt through to Velázquez. There are 30 pictures from Cranach and 16 from Rembrandt. To see the pictures in greater depth, examine them online in the basement computer centre. Kunstgewerbemuseum (Applied Arts Museum) Kulturforum Visitors start their visit on the lower ground floor where the most recent acquisitions are housed – a laptop computer from 1999, electric typewriter and radiogram from the 1960s. Middle floors are more conventional with the expected silver goblets, Meissen china, and early crucifixes; however, a trip to the top floor is certainly worthwhile for the Jugendstil designs on the glassware and ceramics. The museum was built for this collection in the early 1980s but provides a rather austere backdrop for it. Neue Nationalgalerie (Modern Art Gallery) Kulturforum. It is sad that this is the one building Mies van der Rohe designed for post-war Berlin. He claimed he was influenced by Schinkel but to many it resembles an office block he had previously designed for a coal company in Brasilia. As he died soon after it was completed in 1968, he was unable to defend his reputation. Light streams in to the ground floor, but this is only for temporary exhibitions. Late 19th and most of the 20th-century German art has its permanent resting place in the basement, with the newer work all going to Hamburger Bahnhof. The Bauhaus and Brücke movements both have their dedicated museums in Berlin, but a good selection of their work is offered here, together with that of artists such as Oskar Kokoschka and Otto Dix who cannot be placed into a specific school. Much of what should have been here was destroyed by the Nazis as "degenerate"; it was fortunate that many collectors and curators hid away these paintings until after the war. A few works by non-Germans are displayed and they provide the link with art in a much broader sense of the term at Ham- burger Bahnhof. The massive "Who's afraid of Red Yellow and Blue?" by the American painter Barnett Newman provides an appropriate conclusion to this display. Anything more unconventional would not have hung happily with pre-war German masters.
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