Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841) is one of the most important German architects in early 19th-century Berlin, where most of his works are located. They include: Altes Museum, Königin-Luise-Mausoleum, Konzerthaus, Neue Wache, Neuer Pavillon, Schlossbrücke, Schloss Glienicke, Tegelpalais (Humboldt Schloss), and Friedrichswerder Church.
After Napoleon’s French forces came and went, the Prussians decided to tidy up with fresh building projects, especially those with a connection to Gothic or neo-Gothic. Construction of Friedrichswerder church began and ended in 1824 and 1831, respectively. With a total rebuild and renovation after WW2 and a communist dictatorship, the entire space reopened entirely as art space, with the lower floor exhibiting sculptures from the city’s Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery), and the upper floor dedicated to the life and work of Schinkel. The venue is open to the public free of charge.
A decent “sacred” hall to exhibit late-18th & 19th-century sculptures.
Photograph from c. 1857, by Leopold Arendt.
Photograph from c. 1885, by Albert Schwarz.
Photo from 1987.
Schinkel marble statue from the portico of Berlin’s Altes Museum. By C.F. Rieck and completed by Hermann Wittig; marble copy by F. Tübbecke, 1884-1899.
Prussian neo-classicism: double statues of Princesses Luise & Frederike of Prussia, by J.G. Schadow, plaster model, 1795.
Princess Luise of Prussia: by J.G. Schadow, plaster model, 1795.
Princess Frederike of Prussia: by J.G. Schadow, plaster model, 1795.
Commemorative plaques near the front entrance: “Friedrichswerder Church: National Gallery, State Museums of Berlin.”
Commemorative plaques near the front entrance: “Built 1824 to 1830 to the designs by Karl Friedrich Schinkel / destroyed 1944-45 / rebuilt 1982-1987.”
South facade, from Werdescher Markt.
I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 17 and 30 May 2025. I received neither request nor compensation for this content. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.
If I’m fortunate to make the (near-)annual hop “home” across the big eastern pond, my first stop has and will always be Frankfurt am Main. And if I’m fortunate to arrive in late-spring and summer, there’s an early wake-up alarm, and I’m out the door to the Alte Brücke (Old Bridge) for a view of the city skyline in morning light. Change is also a given certainty, and the skyline “welcomes” the latest development of four new towers in the Four Frankfurt project. From this vantage point, the Main Tower is hidden behind Four’s tower T1.
I made the image above on 12 May 2024 with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime and settings: f/10, 1/1000-sec, ISO1000, and 18.5mm focal length (28mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-uM1.
The Christi Himmelfahrt (Day of Christ’s Ascension) national holiday is usually on a Thursday in May, which can lead into a 4-day weekend. Shops are closed and streets are a little quieter, but cultural and natural spaces get a little busier.
I’m heading out to the Allied Museum to check out the decades-long story of Allied forces “occupying and protecting” the city, from post-war reconstruction chaos, division of Berlin and Germany, the Fall of the Wall and subsequent reunification. I’ve made the hour-long trek on Berlin’s S- and U-Bahn to Dahlem, which used to be a part of the American sector in former West Berlin. These are some images from Ascension Day.
Street-level entrance building for U-Bahn U3 station Oskar-Helene-Heim.
Alliierten-Museum (Allied Museum), open daily from 10am to 6pm.
Telex copy from the US Office of War Information in London 🏴, receiving live news reports from Reuters as they were typed and sent. This excerpt is from 8 May 1945 and the timestamp is London time. The text is abbreviated for easier/faster transmission.
1st ever published edition of Berlin newspaper “Der Tagesspiegel” on 27 September 1945. The 1st top headline is “Three (new) states in southern Germany”. At the time, there were other papers, but under the control of the Soviets.
The 4-Power or 4-Nations governing authority in Berlin was the Allied Kommandatura, consisting of France, United Kingdom, United States, and the Soviet Union. After 1948, the authority became the 3-Power formation.
The three sectors in West Berlin.
Station column-signage for the U3 U-Bahn line, from Oskar-Helene-Heim eastboundto terminus Warschauer Straße. In normal operations, it would take 36 minutes to reach the end of the line.
I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 29 May 2025. I received neither request nor compensation for this content. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.
Rain-showers gave way to threatening lines of thunderboomers and downpours. The weather afforded me an opportunity to catch up with cataloguing of my image inventory, cooking in-suite to save a couple of Euros, and some reading.
Dussmann is a name among many lips, as well as eyes and ears in Berlin. It is not simply a “bookstore“. Yes, there are lots of books on display for sale. Yes, they carry music. Yes, there’s a café below. And yes, there’s a separate English bookshop at the back. Dussmann das KukturKaufhaus is a cultural centre in its own right, that many book-loving residents and visitors love to spend time and money on books and in-house events, and that the shop is one of the very few in the city to open late in the evenings.
I do not regret any visit to Dussmann. I regret what’s always about to happen. That my wallet gets a little lighter, but I have the massive fortitude to leave with “only” 1 new book.
Dussmann is located halfway between 2 U-Bahn stations on the U6 line: Friedrichstrasse and Unter den Linden.
Kennst Du schon? / Do you already know?
Interior, ground floor. There are additional floors.
German literature translated into English.
“The Wall” novel by Austrian writer Marlen Haushofer, 1968; translated by Shaun Whiteside, 1990. Martina Gedeck, one of my favourite German actors,plays the protagonist in “Die Wand”, the 2012 film adaptation of the novel.
I made no images on 28 May 2025; all images are from yesterday the 27th. I received neither request nor compensation for this content. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.
It’s channel 1: the national broadcaster ARD (*), known informally by many as “Das Erste” or “The First”. Their studios look grand, modern, and imposing, and hide a grand piece of history in physics.
Like most places of higher learning, they start modestly, and in Berlin’s case, the late-19th and early 20th-century at the University of Berlin (now: Humboldt University) burst at the seams with ideas flowing in the natural sciences and social sciences, at a time when the city itself welcomed openness and creativity.
Berlin is best known for its history, decades of extended trauma, its architecture, and a cultural centre with contemporary art and electronic music. I know Berlin as a place of world-changing science with renowned scientists, whose names massively stamped the last half of my undergraduate years.
(*) ARD: Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland; translated as “Association of Public Broadcasting Corporations of the Federal Republic of Germany”. It’s something like Canada’s CBC, Australia’s ABC, or Great Britain’s BBC.
ARD Hauptstadtstudio
ARD (national channel no.1) radio- & tv-studios at Wilhelmstrasse next to Marshallbrücke. On the right side (west-facing wall) is a memorial plaque near the back corner, hidden behind the tree.
Left panel: From 1996 to 1998, the building owner association SFB & WDR led construction of the Berlin radio- & television-studios for the broadcaster ARD.
Right panel: Built for Hermann Helmholtz, the Physics Institute of the University of Berlin once stood at this spot from 1878 to 1945. Key physicists worked here, including James Franck, Gustav Hertz, Walther Nernst, Wilhelm Wien, Max Planck. In his institute lecture on 14 December 1900, Planck described the early principles of quantum theory.
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
“From 1914 to 1932, Albert Einstein worked here as a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences.” State Library of Berlin is located at Unter den Linden 8.
The Einstein plaque appears at left in this image, next to the doors of the former Prussian Academy of Sciences. On 4 November 1915, Einstein presents his “field equations” for general relativity in a lecture to the Academy.
Humboldt University
Formerly the University of Berlin, today’s Humboldt University main building (next door to the State Library) greets visitors with a statue of physicist Hermann Helmholtz. Einstein also presented lectures about his developments in general relativity to the university’s physics institute.
Max Planck, who discovered ‘h’ the elementary quantum of action, taught in this building from 1889 to 1928. This memorial plaque is on the outer wall of the main building’s west wing. Planck is also honoured with a memorial statue in the main building’s front courtyard. Today, a massive German network of research institutes is named in his honour as the Max Planck Gesellschaft; I had the great privilege of spending 2 years at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg.
In 1931, American physicist Millikan was invited to Berlin. In this incredible image of a dinner-gathering in Berlin on 12 November 1931, seated from left to right, respectively, are: Walther Ernst, 1920 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; Albert Einstein, 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics; Max Planck, 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics; Robert Millikan, 1923 Nobel Prize in Physics; and Max von Laue, 1914 Nobel Prize in Physics.
I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 27 May 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.
Fotoeins Fotografie 