Potsdamer Platz, Berlin

Potsdamer Platz is a public square shaped by traffic, commerce, and a turbulent history. Its name reaches back to Potsdam and to the former Potsdam Gate, where the road toward that city passed through Berlin’s customs wall. In 1734, the gate was built; the square acquired its present name in 1831.

By the early twentieth century, rail services, an underground station, trams, and buses had made this one of Europe’s busiest traffic places. At the end of 1924, a traffic tower brought an early traffic-light installation to the site. After the Second World War, the square became a meeting point of the Soviet, British, and American sectors.

From August 1961, the Berlin Wall cut across it, leaving the area as an urban wasteland for almost three decades. On 12 November 1989, shortly after the Wall opened, workers cleared a section here and created a provisional crossing. The rebuilt quarter now combines offices, shops, restaurants, cinemas, and hotels. Its redevelopment during the 1990s and early 2000s involved internationally known architects, including Renzo Piano, and turned this once-divided space into a major commercial and cultural destination.