Gendarmenmarkt

Gendarmenmarkt takes its name from the Gens d'Armes cavalry regiment once stationed nearby, and the square that developed around their old barracks became, over the 18th and 19th centuries, the architectural showpiece of the Friedrichstadt district — an ensemble widely regarded as the most harmonious in Berlin and among the finest in northern Europe.

Three buildings anchor the square. The Französischer Dom (French Cathedral) was built for the city's Huguenot refugee community, French Protestants who fled persecution and settled in Berlin in significant numbers from the late 17th century; today it houses a small Huguenot museum and, for those willing to climb 284 steps, a viewing platform with sweeping views over the square. Its near-mirror twin, the Deutscher Dom (German Cathedral), holds a permanent exhibition on the development of German parliamentary democracy. Between them, the Konzerthaus Berlin — a neoclassical former royal theatre, demolished almost entirely in WWII and rebuilt afterward — anchors the composition with a grand columned portico and a statue of Friedrich Schiller out front.