Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
who effectively razed the street. Rebuilt considerably wider, what had once been
a narrow, slightly claustrophobic street became a broad, desolate road. Since
reunification, Friedrichstrasse has been extensively revamped. Bland modern edifices
now house o
ces, malls and a series of fairly high-end boutiques that rub shoulders
with more everyday shops, including several good bookshops.
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
Dorotheenstr. 27 • Mon-Fri 9am-9pm, Sat 10am-7pm; 90min tours Tues & Fri 5pm & first Sat in month 10.30am • Free, including tours •
W
staatsbibliothek-berlin.de • U-Französische Strasse
A block east of the intersection with Friedrichstrasse, Unter den Linden passes south
of the
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
(State Library). First the Prussian, then GDR state
library, it is a typically grandiose edifice dating from the turn of the twentieth century,
with a facade that was extensively patched up after wartime shrapnel damage. Now
twinned with the Staatsbibliothek in the Kulturforum (see p.94), it is mainly the haunt
of Humboldt University students. Visitors who don't feel like delving into the volumes
within can sit in the ivy-clad courtyard by the fountain. As you do so, admire a
GDR-era sculpture showing a member of the proletariat apparently reading a didactic
Brecht poem on a relief at the other side of the fountain.
Bebelplatz and around
Two blocks northeast of the Gendarmenmarkt, the lime trees no longer define Unter
den Linden as it opens out into the imposing Neoclassical
Bebelplatz
that marks the
start of Berlin's eighteenth-century showpiece quarter. Bebelplatz itself was conceived
by Frederick the Great as both a tribute to ancient Rome and a monument to himself.
He and the architect
Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff
drew up plans for a space
that would recall the great open squares of the Classical city and be known as Forum
Fridericianum. It never quite fulfilled such lofty ambitions, although the architecture of
many of the buildings did receive acclaim at the time. he centrepiece square is rather
bleak and unimpressive; it has only just recovered from a spate of building work that
put in an underground car park and gutted the
Dresdner Bank
on its south side. he
bank has been converted to house the luxurious
Hotel de Rome
,
the interiors of which
were used in the film
Run Lola Run
(see p.277).
The Empty Library
At the windswept and otherwise featureless centre of Bebelplatz lies the
Empty Library
,
a monument to the most infamous event to happen on the square. It was here that on
May 10, 1933, the infamous
Büchverbrennung
took place, in front of the university,
on what was then called Opernplatz. On the orders of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's
propaganda minister, twenty thousand topics that conflicted with Nazi ideology went
up in flames. Among them were the works of “un-German” authors like Erich Maria
Remarque, homas and Heinrich Mann, Stefan Zweig and Erich Kästner, along with
volumes by countless foreign writers, H.G. Wells and Ernest Hemingway among them.
he most fitting comment on this episode was made with unwitting foresight by the
Jewish poet Heinrich Heine in the previous century: “Where they start by burning
topics, they'll end by burning people.” he ingenious monument itself, by Micha
Ullmann, is simply a room with empty shelves set in the ground under a pane of glass;
it is at its most spectacular at night when a beam of light streams out.
Alte Bibliothek
he
Alte Bibliothek
, a former royal library, crowds the western side of Bebelplatz
with a curved Baroque facade that has given it the nickname
Die Kommode
(“the chest
of drawers”). Built between 1775 and 1780, its design was based on that of the
Michaelertrakt in Vienna's Hofburg. Lenin spent some time here poring over dusty
OPPOSITE
REICHSTAG DOME INTERIOR >
