Located on Muehlenstrasse, this 1.3 km stretch of the Berlin Wall is the longest section still intact and is visited by tourists and locals every day. Across the street is Berlin's largest Mercedes Benz Arena, in the former East Germany, which is used for everything from ice hockey to sold-out concerts in the city.
After 1989, the remaining parts of the Berlin Wall became the East Side Museum located on the Spree River at the former border of east and west.
Contrary to popular belief, there was not just one wall that was erected when Berlin was divided, but many barriers and many walls were built. The wall went through four major redesigns during its nearly 30 years of existence.
The Spree River flows through Berlin and the section in the picture used to be the dividing line between East and West. On the other side of the river is East Germany, with some houses that existed before the wall was built. On this side of the river today is a completely new construction with shopping centers, bustling tourist streets... The 23m long wall in the picture was originally located elsewhere, but was moved here for preservation because in 2013 it was demolished to build luxury apartments on the site of the Berlin Wall.
Immediately after the wall fell, 118 artists from 21 countries began painting more than 100 pictures on the wall and officially opened as an open-air museum on September 28, 1990, the longest open-air museum in the world today.
By 2000, a 300m section of the wall had been restored and 33 murals repainted, and in 2009, the entire East Museum was restored. 87 artists were involved and 100 murals were repainted after a period of deterioration.
The Berlin Wall is no longer the dry gray color of bricks and mortar.
In fact, it wasn't until much later that graffiti appeared on the Berlin Wall. During the years it was built, graffiti covered the western side of the wall, but the eastern side was left bare due to its inaccessibility.
The gate from the west looking east
On the wall there are many world famous paintings such as the one of people climbing over the wall, young people jumping over the wall, the famous Trabant car of East Germany or the brotherly kiss... The portrait of Nobel Peace Prize winning nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov is one of them.
Bird of Peace
The artists originally painted their murals in 1990 but they were repainted later.
The Berlin Wall welcomes more than 3 million visitors each year.
A section of the Berlin Wall today
Today, throughout the city, visitors can find traces of the Berlin Wall, monuments and memorial sites of the wall such as the East Side Museum, the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse, the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial... Remains of the Berlin Wall can also be found in more remote places such as Berlin-Spandau, in Berlin-Reinickendorf or at the Cathedral Cemetery.
Berlin was divided for nearly 30 years with a wall running through the city center. From August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall divided the city into East and West Berlin, stretching 167.8 km.
The documentary photo is on display at the East Side Museum, located right where the Berlin Wall still stands today - the border between West Germany and East Germany.
Source link
Comment (0)