Travel
A flurry of new openings proves the German capital’s knack for reinventing itself.
ByRory Goulding
Published July 13, 2023
• 4 min read
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).
From July, Berliners will be looking over their city from a fresh perspective, as the former airport control tower and viewing terrace at the old Tempelhof Field open to the public for the first time since flights ceased in 2008. Its grounds — saved from development — have already served as a treasured open space for locals, but the latest renovation marks a new departure. With its front entrance barely two miles from the Brandenburg Gate, this former truly urban airport offers a 360-degree skyline panorama. Though this will be the prime draw, Tempelhof’s historic resonance — explored in an exhibition space inside — makes this more than just another viewing platform. The airport was expanded in the 1930s as an infamous example of Nazi-period architecture, but it turned into a symbol of freedom when it was used to transport food and fuel to West Berlin during the Cold War blockade by the Soviets in 1948-9.
A snapshot of the 20th century
The Fotografiska museum of photography opened in Stockholm in 2010 and has since proved such a success, it’s opened branches beyond Sweden, in New York and Tallinn. Berlin is set to welcome its own Fotografiska this summer, and it couldn’t have picked a more fitting setting. Kunsthaus Tacheles was built in 1907 as a department store, but spent most of the 20th century falling into increasing dilapidation. It gained fame for its community of artist squatters beginning in the heady days after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Though they were evicted in 2012, this three-floor space in the Mitte district will bear graffitied reminders of its recent past as it takes on a new role.
Power to the people
The last three years have seen the completion of the reconstructed Berlin Palace, now home not to moustachioed Prussian kings but the museum collections of the Humboldt Forum, including displays of Asian art and ethnography. In front of its baroque main entrance, where a monument to Kaiser Wilhelm I stood until 1950, a new memorial is being given its finishing touches. The National Monument to Freedom and Unity will commemorate the revolution of 1989 that toppled the communist regime and brought the two Germanies back together. The memorial takes the form of a slightly boat-shaped, 164ft-long structure, balanced in a see-saw fashion, that visitors can step onto. If enough people gather at one end, the tipping point will be reached, and it’ll start to shift.
Where to stay in Berlin
Set on the leafy streets of Charlottenburg, The Hoxton’s first German property has 234 rooms that pick up art nouveau details from the neighbourhood, one block south of Kurfürstendamm. The headline restaurant serves a modern Indian tandoor menu.
Where to eat
Insect-based cuisine is, in the Western world at least, the food revolution that never quite happened. MikroKosmos is introducing the practice with a couple of dishes on its otherwise plant-based, South American-accented menu.
Published in the Jul/Aug 2023 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK).
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