Nicolai Quarter: Berlin's Medieval Heart
Berlin, Germany
This walk traces Berlin’s birthplace around the River Spree, from the old center of Berlin and Cölln to the Hohenzollern seat and the historic core. It also shows how war and postwar politics erased much of that past, from the Berlin Palace to other old buildings. In the Nikolaiviertel, rebuilt for Berlin’s 750th birthday, and at the Lustgarten, Berlin Palace, Neptune’s Fountain, and St Mary’s Church, the route asks what is original, reconstructed, or reimagined.
The stops
- 01 Lustgarten
The Lustgarten is a formal square on Berlin's Museum Island between the Altes Museum, Berlin Cathedral, and the Berlin Palace, laid out originally as a royal pleasure garden.
- 02 Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom)
Berlin Cathedral is the large domed Protestant church on Museum Island, built between 1894 and 1905 as the imperial court church of the Hohenzollerns.
- 03 Berlin Palace - Humboldt Forum
The Berlin Palace, now housing the Humboldt Forum museum complex, occupies Schlossplatz on Museum Island and reconstructs the former royal residence of the Hohenzollerns.
- 04 Ribbeck House (Ribbeck-Haus)
Ribbeck House on Breite Straße is the oldest surviving house in central Berlin, a late-Renaissance townhouse built in 1624 for the electoral councillor Hans Georg von Ribbeck.
- 05 Ephraim Palace (Ephraim-Palais)
Ephraim Palace is a rococo corner building on the Mühlendamm in the Nikolaiviertel, built between 1762 and 1769 for the court jeweller and mint-master Veitel Heine Ephraim.
- 06 Knoblauchhaus
The Knoblauchhaus on Poststraße is a neoclassical townhouse built between 1759 and 1761, the only genuinely original eighteenth-century building surviving in the Nikolaiviertel.
- 07 St. Nicholas' Church (Nikolaikirche)
Saint Nicholas' Church, with its twin spires marking the centre of the Nikolaiviertel, contains the oldest surviving building fabric in Berlin, dating from around 1230.
- 08 Zum Nußbaum
Zum Nußbaum is a reconstructed half-timbered tavern in the Nikolaiviertel, rebuilt in the 1980s as a copy of a late-medieval gabled house originally located across the river in Alt-Cölln.
- 09 Molkenmarkt
Molkenmarkt is the oldest square in Berlin, a former medieval marketplace near the Spree that is currently being redeveloped as a new urban quarter following major archaeological excavations.
- 10 Red Town Hall (Rotes Rathaus)
The Red Town Hall on Rathausstraße is Berlin's city hall, a red brick building constructed between 1861 and 1871 that remains the seat of the Governing Mayor and the Senate.
- 11 Neptune Fountain (Neptunbrunnen)
Neptune Fountain is a monumental neo-baroque bronze fountain by Reinhold Begas standing between the Red Town Hall and Saint Mary's Church, originally installed at Berlin Palace in 1891.
- 12 St. Mary's Church (Marienkirche) & the Luther Monument
Saint Mary's Church, near the base of the Berlin television tower, is the oldest church in Berlin still used for regular worship, with foundations dating to around 1270.
The narration at every stop is in the app — this is the map of where it takes you, with a line on each stop.
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