Brandenburg Gate

The Brandenburg Gate was built between 1788 and 1791 for King Frederick William II of Prussia, designed by Carl Gotthard Langhans and modelled directly on the Propylaea, the ceremonial gateway to the Acropolis in Athens. It was conceived as a monument to peace, topped by the Quadriga — a bronze chariot drawn by four horses, driven by the goddess of victory — and for over two centuries it has stood at the western end of Unter den Linden as the closest thing Berlin has to a single defining symbol.

That symbolism has shifted with the city's fortunes more than almost any other monument in Europe. Napoleon marched through it in 1806 and shipped the Quadriga to Paris as a trophy; it came back after his defeat. The Nazis used it as a backdrop for torchlit rallies. After 1961 the Berlin Wall ran directly behind it, sealing the gate inside a no-man's-land that neither East nor West Berliners could reach — the single most photographed backdrop of a divided city, permanently empty. When the Wall fell in November 1989, it was here that the largest crowds gathered, and the gate's reopening on 22 December 1989 is one of the defining images of German reunification.