When looking for a holiday apartment in Friedrichshain, it is worth first deciding which perspective you want to take on your stay: park design, monumental architecture or digital gaming culture. Volkspark Friedrichshain, the East Side Gallery and the Computer Games Museum offer very different starting points. Karl-Marx-Allee adds a view of the city’s history; Oberbaum Bridge is a place to cross the Spree beneath an elevated U-Bahn viaduct.
Park History and the Fairy-Tale Fountain
Volkspark Friedrichshain was laid out between 1846 and 1848 according to plans by Gustav Meyer, who later became Berlin’s first municipal director of gardens. The park is one of Berlin’s oldest municipal parks. Its network of paths is dense, winding and interconnected; at its centre is a magnificent promenade with a viewing area. A stream flowed into the Great Pond below the viewing area.
The park’s main attraction is the Fairy-Tale Fountain. Its romantic fairy-tale figures were created by Ignatius Taschner and Georg Wrba. The fountain has been a listed monument since 1959. The park therefore brings together different historical periods: its creation in the mid-19th century and the later protection of the fountain. If you are interested in design, the promenade, viewpoint and fairy-tale figures each offer a distinct perspective on the park.
Street Architecture and Crossing the Spree
Karl-Marx-Allee stretches between Strausberger Platz and Frankfurter Tor. During the GDR era, it was called Stalinallee; with its monumental streetscape, it was East Berlin’s showcase boulevard. The former name and this historical role go together when you want to put the avenue’s architectural history into context.
A history walk leads to 24 landmark buildings along Karl-Marx-Allee. An interactive map marks their locations and shows the way. The tour thus provides an orientation to the avenue’s key architectural landmarks. At Oberbaum Bridge, pedestrians can cross the Spree beneath the elevated tracks of Berlin’s oldest U-Bahn line. This is not about a street façade, but about a crossing shaped by both the river and the railway viaduct.
Open-Air Art and the History of Computer Games
The East Side Gallery in Friedrichshain is considered the world’s longest open-air gallery. It has been a listed monument since November 1991. Its status as a gallery and its protected status describe two sides of the site: public art and its heritage significance.
The Computer Games Museum opened in Berlin in 1997 as the world’s first permanent exhibition devoted to digital interactive entertainment culture. The current permanent exhibition opened in 2011 in the former Café Warschau in Berlin-Friedrichshain and traces the development of computer games over the past 70 years. More than 30 of the museum’s over 300 exhibits can be played and tried out; the number may be higher, depending on the special exhibition. The overall collection and the playable selection offer two different reasons to visit: the development of the medium and the chance to try games for yourself.
Planning the Timing of a Sightseeing Tour
A sightseeing tour of Friedrichshain starts at Frankfurter Tor U-Bahn station, which is also served by two tram lines. From the nightlife district around Simon-Dach-StraĂźe, it leads to viewpoints on the Spree, with a detour to Treptower Park, then continues to the East Side Gallery and Karl-Marx-Allee, and finally to Volkspark Friedrichshain. The journey time alone is listed as one hour and 20 minutes; time for stops is not included. This time estimate therefore helps you distinguish the travel time on the tour from the time spent at its stops.
Discover more destinations: Berlin-Neukölln, Berlin, Berlin-Reinickendorf, Wilmersdorf, Grünau, Zehlendorf, Mahlsdorf, Biesdorf
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