Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, Guide du visiteur et quoi faire à proximité

Potsdamer Platz is a large public square and transport hub in central Berlin, at the edge of the Tiergarten. Once one of the busiest crossroads in Europe, it was wrecked in the Second World War, cut in two by the Berlin Wall and rebuilt in the 1990s as a district of glass towers, offices and cinemas. It is one of the clearest places in the city to see how Berlin was broken apart and put back together.

The story behind it

Before the war, Potsdamer Platz was a crowded junction of streets, trams and railway traffic. In 1924 a traffic signal tower was set up here, one of the earliest in Europe, to bring order to the flow of vehicles. Wartime bombing then destroyed most of the area, and after 1945 the square lay on the border between East and West. When the Wall was built it ran straight through, and the former city centre became empty, guarded ground.

After the Wall fell, that open land became a stage. In 1990 Roger Waters, formerly of Pink Floyd, performed The Wall here in front of a crowd reported in the hundreds of thousands. In the years that followed, large-scale construction produced the transport hub and business quarter you see today.

What to look for

• A reconstructed traffic signal tower stands on the square as a nod to the 1924 original, and it is a good photo stop.
• Look for the sections of the Berlin Wall displayed near the station entrance, which show how close the border ran to the middle of the city.
• The Sony Center has a huge tent-like roof over its central courtyard, and it looks especially striking when lit in the evening.
• Haus Huth, one of the few buildings in the area to survive the war, sits among the new towers and shows how much of the old square was lost.

Tips for your visit

• The square is public and free to walk around. Allow 30 to 60 minutes, or longer if you add the courtyard of the Sony Center or a viewing platform (check current opening hours).
• Late afternoon into evening is a pleasant time to come, when the buildings are lit and the cafes and cinemas are busy.
• Potsdamer Platz station has S-Bahn, U-Bahn and regional connections, so it is easy to reach from most parts of Berlin.
• On foot, you are close to the Tiergarten park, the Holocaust Memorial and the Brandenburg Gate, so it pairs well with a longer walk.

See it on a quest

Berlin: Tiergarten District Highlights is a good way to see Potsdamer Platz in context. You reach the square on foot as one stop of a longer route through the Tiergarten district, the app tells you about each place as you arrive, and you solve a puzzle based on what is in front of you. One ticket covers the whole group, and you can start whenever you like, with no guide and no set departure time.