Alexanderplatz is reputedly the most visited area of Berlin, beating Friedrichstrasse and City West. It is a popular starting point for tourists, with many attractions including the Fernsehturm (TV tower), the Nikolai Quarter and the Rotes Rathaus ('Red City Hall') situated nearby. Alexanderplatz is still one of Berlin's major commercial areas, housing various shopping malls, department stores and other large retail locations.
A hospital stood at the location of present-day Alexanderplatz since the 13th century. Named Heiliger Georg (St. George), the hospital gave its name to the nearby Georgentor (George Gate) of the Berlin city wall. Outside the city walls, this area was largely undeveloped until around 1400, when the first settlers began building thatched cottages. As a gallows was located close by, the area earned the nickname the Teufels Lustgarten ('Devil's Pleasure Garden').[1]
Between 1752 and 1755, the writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing lived in a house on Alexanderplatz. In 1771, a new stone bridge (the KÃnigsbrÃcke) was built over the moat and in 1777 a colonnade-lined row of shops (KÃnigskolonnaden) was constructed by architect Carl von Gontard. Between 1783 and 1784, seven three-storey buildings were erected around the square by Georg Christian Unger, including the famous Gasthof zum Hirschen, where Karl Friedrich Schinkel lived as a permanent tenant and Heinrich von Kleist stayed in the days before his suicide.
On 25 October 1805 the Russian Tsar Alexander I was welcomed to the city on the parade grounds in front of the old King's Gate. To mark this occasion, on 2 November, King Frederick William III ordered the square to be renamed Alexanderplatz:[4]
During the March Revolution of 1848, large-scale street fighting occurred on the streets of Alexanderplatz, where revolutionaries used barricades to block the route from Alexanderplatz to the city. Novelist and poet Theodor Fontane, who worked in the vicinity in a nearby pharmacy, participated in the construction of barricades and later described how he used materials from the KÃnigstÃdter Theater to barricade Neue KÃnigstraße.[6]
At the beginning of the 1870s, the Berlin administration had the former moat filled to build the Berlin city railway, which was opened in 1882 along with Bahnhof Alexanderplatz ('Alexanderplatz Railway Station').
In 1886, the local authorities built a central market hall west of the rail tracks, which replaced the weekly market on the Alexanderplatz in 1896. During the end of the 19th century, the emerging private traffic and the first horse bus lines dominated the northern part of the square, the southern part (the former parade ground) remained quiet, having green space elements added by garden director Hermann MÃchtig in 1889. The northwest of the square contained a second, smaller green space where, in 1895, the 7.5-metre (25 ft) copper Berolina statue by sculptor Emil Hundrieser was erected.
Alexanderplatz's position as a main transport and traffic hub continued to fuel its development. In addition to the three U-Bahn underground lines, long-distance trains and S-Bahn trains ran along the Platz's viaduct arches. Omnibuses, horse-drawn from 1877 and, after 1898, also electric-powered trams,[8] ran out of Alexanderplatz in all directions in a star shape. The subway station was designed by Alfred Grenander and followed the colour-coded order of subway stations, which began with green at Leipziger Platz and ran through to dark red.
In the Golden Twenties, Alexanderplatz was the epitome of the lively, pulsating cosmopolitan city of Berlin, rivalled in the city only by Potsdamer Platz. Many of the buildings and rail bridges surrounding the platz bore large billboards that illuminated the night. The Berlin cigarette company Manoli had a famous billboard at the time which contained a ring of neon tubes that constantly circled a black ball. The proverbial "Berliner Tempo" of those years was characterized as "total manoli". Writer Kurt Tucholsky wrote a poem referencing the advert, and the composer Rudolf Nelson made the legendary Revue Total manoli with the dancer Lucie Berber. The writer Alfred DÃblin named his novel, Berlin Alexanderplatz, after the square, and Walter Ruttmann filmed his 1927 film parts of Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (Berlin: The Symphony of the Big City) at Alexanderplatz.
The war reached Alexanderplatz in early April 1945. The Berolina statue had already been removed in 1944 and probably melted down for use in arms production. During the Battle of Berlin, Red Army artillery bombarded the area around Alexanderplatz. The battles of the last days of the war destroyed considerable parts of the historic KÃnigsstadt, as well as many of the buildings around Alexanderplatz.
Before a planned reconstruction of the entire Alexanderplatz could take place, all the war ruins needed to be demolished and cleared away. A popular black market emerged within the ruined area, which the police raided several times a day.
One structure demolished after World War II was the 'Rote Burg', a red brick building with round arches, previously used as police and Gestapo headquarters. The huge construction project began in 1886 and was completed in 1890; it was one of Berlin's largest buildings. The 'castle' suffered extensive damage during 1944-45 and was demolished in 1957. The site on the southwest corner of Alexanderplatz remained largely unused as a carpark until the Alexa shopping centre opened in 2007.[10]
Alexanderplatz has been subject to redevelopment several times in its history, most recently during the 1960s, when it was turned into a pedestrian zone and enlarged as part of the German Democratic Republic's redevelopment of the city centre. It is surrounded by several notable structures including the Fernsehturm (TV Tower).
During the Peaceful Revolution of 1989, the Alexanderplatz demonstration on 4 November 1989 was the largest demonstration in the history of the German Democratic Republic. Protests starting 15 October and peaked on 4 November with an estimated 200,000 participants who called on the government of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany to step down and demanded a free press, the opening of the borders and their right to travel. Speakers were Christa Wolf, Stefan Heym, Friedrich Schorlemmer, Heiner MÃller, Lothar Bisky, Christoph Hein and Steffie Spira. The protests continued and culminated in the unexpected Fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989.[11]
Ever since German reunification, Alexanderplatz has undergone a gradual process of change with many of the surrounding buildings being renovated. After the political turnaround in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall, socialist urban planning and architecture of the 1970s no longer corresponded to the current ideas of an inner-city square. Investors demanded planning security for their construction projects. After initial discussions with the public, the goal quickly arose to reinstate Alexanderplatz's tram network for better connections to surrounding city quarters. In 1993, an urban planning ideas competition for architects took place to redesign the square and its surrounding area.[citation needed]
In 1995, Landesbank Berlin completed the renovation of the Alexanderhaus. In 1998, the first tram returned to Alexanderplatz, and in 1999, the town planning contracts for the implementation of Kollhoff and Timmermann's plans were signed by the landowners and the investors.[citation needed]
On 2 April 2000, the Senate finally fixed the development plan for Alexanderplatz. The purchase contracts between investors and the Senate Department for Urban Development were signed on 23 May 2002, thus laying the foundations for the development.[citation needed]
The CUBIX multiplex cinema (CineStar Cubix am Alexanderplatz,[13] styled CUBIX[14]), which opened in November 2000, joined the team of Berlin International Film Festival cinemas in 2007, and the festival shows films on three of its screens.[15]
In 2005, the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe began work to extend the tram line from Prenzlauer Allee to Alexanderplatz (Alex II). This route was originally to be opened in 2000 but was postponed several times. After further delays caused by the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the route opened on 30 May 2007.[citation needed]
Behind the Alexanderplatz station, next to the CUBIX cinema in the immediate vicinity of the TV tower, the 30-metre (98 ft) high residential and commercial building, Alea 101, was built between 2012 and 2014.[citation needed]
In January 2014, a 39-story residential tower designed by Frank Gehry was announced, but this project was put on hold in 2018.[19]The Alexanderplatz area is the largest area for crime in Berlin. As of October 2017, Alexanderplatz was classified a kriminalitÃtsbelasteter Ort ("crime-contaminated location") by the Berlin Allgemeinen Sicherheits- und Ordnungsgesetz (General Safety and Planning Laws).[20]
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