The Wall and street art: from the East Side Gallery to Teufelsberg

About The Wall and street art: from the East Side Gallery to Teufelsberg

By the ULTIMATE Berlin Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

When the Wall opened, artists turned its eastern face on Mühlenstrasse into the East Side Gallery. Today you can follow the story from the paintings by the Spree to the preserved border strip on Bernauer Strasse, and on to the city’s street-art museums and murals.

The East Side Gallery

The stretch of Wall on Mühlenstrasse, in Friedrichshain, was part of the 155-kilometre border that ran all the way around West Berlin. In 1990 artists from many countries covered it in paintings, and the Berlin Wall Foundation now looks after it. Two murals draw the crowds: Dmitri Vrubel’s famous painting of a fraternal kiss between two leaders of the Eastern bloc, with its caption, and Birgit Kinder’s “Test the Best”, a Trabant bursting through the Wall. Allow about 30 to 45 minutes to walk its length.

Bernauer Strasse

At the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse, a stretch of the border strip survives as it was: the inner wall, the death strip and a watchtower, seen from a viewing platform. The houses along this street stood right on the border, and it is remembered for the escapes attempted from them.

Walk the East Side Gallery from the Oberbaum Bridge towards the Ostbahnhof, then take the S-Bahn to Nordbahnhof for Bernauer Strasse.

Street art today

Urban Nation, on Bülowstrasse in Schöneberg, shows urban contemporary art indoors and on its façade. Teufelsberg, the former listening station on a hill of wartime rubble in the Grunewald, is now covered in murals; opening times and tours are on its own website. In Mitte, the courtyard of Haus Schwarzenberg on Rosenthaler Strasse, beside the Hackesche Höfe, is layered in street art.

Our advice: visit Bernauer Strasse first. It explains everything else you will see.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with The Wall and street art: from the East Side Gallery to Teufelsberg before you go.