One of the most important thoroughfares in the German capital, Friedrichstrasse is the shopping and culture-rich anchor of the Friedrichstadt neighbourhood in central Berlin. Bisected by the Berlin Wall during the Cold War, the street is famous today as the site of Checkpoint Charlie.
Checkpoint Charlie is by far Friedrichstrasse’s most famous tourist attraction. The former Berlin Wall crossing now holds a museum about the infamous Wall and its painfully poignant mark on German history. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification of Germany, Friedrichstrasse has rebuilt and is now also home to several high-end hotels and shopping centres, some created by world-famous designers. The Galeries Lafayette department store, for example, is the work of Jean Nouvel.
Spanning 2.5 kilometres through the centre of Berlin, Friedrichstrasse runs from Orianenburger Tor to Kreuzberg. It is served by the local U-Bahn system, with stops including Alt-Mariendorf, Friedrichstrasse, Franzosische Strasse, Stadtmitte and Checkpoint Charlie. The street is less than a 15-minute walk from the Brandenburg Gate.
Friedrichstrasse famously suffered under World War II and the Cold War, as did much of the rest of Berlin and Germany. It was this central shopping street.However, that became the biggest reconstruction project in the German capital in the 1990s. In addition to Jean Nouvel, other famous architects like Philip Johnson and Raimund Abraham contributed projects to the area’s redevelopment.