Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Klosterstrasse and around
Named after a long-gone local monastery,
Klosterstrasse
leaves the banks of the Spree
and the Dutch Embassy to link several minor points of interest. he
Parochialkirche
, a
sixteenth-century Baroque church, lies near its junction with
Parochialstrasse
. he bare
brick interior (legacy of the usual wartime gutting) is a venue for changing, but often
low-key art exhibitions (free). Parochialstrasse itself had a brief moment of importance
when the building at
Parochialstrasse 1
hosted the first meeting of Berlin's post-Nazi
town council, headed by future SED chief Walter Ulbricht, even as fighting still raged
a little to the west. Ulbricht and his comrades had been specially flown in from Soviet
exile to sow the seeds of a communist civil administration, and they moved in here,
having been unable to set up shop in the still-burning Rotes Rathaus.
he northern end of Klosterstrasse is worth a quick look for the gutted thirteenth-
century
Franziskaner-Kirche
, destroyed by a landmine in 1945 and left a ruin by GDR
authorities as a warning against war and fascism. Another ruin from Berlin's history is
behind it on Littenstrasse where a fragment of
Stadtmauer
, the original thirteenth-
century Berlin wall, survives. Behind it is the atmospheric old
Zur letzten Instanz
,
Berlin's oldest pub (see p.190).
3
Märkisches Museum
Am Köllnischen Park 5 • Tues & Thurs-Sun 10am-6pm • €5, free on first Wed every month •
W
stadtmuseum.de • U-Märkisches Museum
Occupying a building that resembles a red-brick neo-Gothic cathedral, the
Märkisches
Museum
feels somewhat dated in its treatment of Berlin and Brandenburg's history.
Small rooms are crammed with paintings, gadgets and glass vitrines, and the text is in
German only. he displays, which predate reunification, are also episodic: eighteenth-
and nineteenth-century culture is definitely the museum's forte. One of the first rooms
deals with Berlin's late nineteenth-century role as a centre of
barrel organ
production,
an industry established by Italian immigrants. Many of these music-makers are on
display, as well as their increasingly large and more intricate progeny. Organ-grinding
performances are given every Sunday at 3pm.
Other rooms are divided into sections of the city - Unter den Linden, Friedrichstrasse
and so on. Among them is the
Gottische Kapelle
, a room resembling a small chapel
and filled with wonderful pieces of medieval sacred art from (usually) unknown local
artisans. More secular is the room devoted to the “Panorama”, a huge arcade-like
machine, built over a hundred years ago: as you peer through the eyepiece, a huge
drum rotates to show you dozens of fascinating
3D
photographs
of 1890s Berlin.
Less rewarding are the early history displays, from prehistoric pottery pieces to copies
of royal proclamations from Friedrich Wilhelm, the Great Elector, who died in 1688.
A marvellous bronze statue of Bismarck dressed as a blacksmith manfully forging
German unity is a highlight, and there are seven original sections of the Berlin Wall.
More Berliniana is on view outside the museum: a statue of Heinrich Zille and, in a
leafy park behind, a
bearpit
that provides the depressing home to a couple of sleepy
brown bears, Berlin's city symbol.
