Academy of Arts, Pariser Platz

Stand still for a moment on the paving stones of Pariser Platz. To one side, the columns of the Brandenburg Gate catch the light. In front of you, one façade does something its neighbours do not. It is made of glass. Through it you can see stairs, ramps, and people moving between floors. The square around it is all stone and order. This building lets you look straight inside.

This is the home of the Academy of Arts, the Akademie der Künste. Its roots go back to 1696, when the Elector of Brandenburg, who later became Prussia's first king, founded an academy for painting and sculpture. That makes it one of the oldest institutions of its kind in Europe. Over the centuries it grew to include architects, musicians, writers, and performers. Today it is a meeting place, an archive, and an exhibition space, all under one roof.

The address matters. Pariser Platz sits directly behind the Brandenburg Gate. For generations it was one of the most prestigious squares in Berlin. Embassies, banks, grand hotels, and the town houses of wealthy families lined it. The academy took up residence here in the nineteenth century, in a palace on the south side of the square. Artists exhibited a few steps from the Gate where parades and state visits passed by.

One of its most famous residents lived just next door. The painter Max Liebermann had his home and studio in a house beside the Gate. He became president of the Prussian Academy of Arts and was one of the best-known German painters of his time. Liebermann was Jewish. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the atmosphere at the academy changed almost overnight. He gave up his positions and withdrew from public life.

He was not alone. In the same period, the artist Käthe Kollwitz and the novelist Heinrich Mann were pushed out of the academy. Kollwitz made powerful prints and sculptures about grief, war, and poverty. Mann was a sharp critic of authoritarian politics. Their exclusion shows how quickly a cultural institution can be bent to political will. The academy did not resist. It was brought into line, like so much else in Germany at that time.

Here is a detail many visitors miss. During the Nazi years, parts of the academy building were taken over by Albert Speer, Hitler's architect. From here, his office planned the vast rebuilding of Berlin into a monumental capital called Germania. Models of enormous avenues and domes were developed on this site. Most of that plan was never built. But the idea of it was shaped in rooms on this very square.

Then came the war. Pariser Platz was heavily damaged, and most of its buildings were destroyed. After 1961, the square lay right beside the Berlin Wall. The Gate stood in a closed border zone, and the once elegant square became an empty, guarded space. For almost three decades, ordinary Berliners could not walk here freely. It is hard to imagine that today, as tourists cross the square in every direction.

The academy itself split in two, like the city. In East Berlin, a German Academy of Arts was founded in 1950. In West Berlin, a separate Academy of Arts was established in the 1950s, with its own building in the Tiergarten district. Each side had its own members, its own exhibitions, its own idea of what art should do. After reunification, the two academies merged in 1993 into a single institution.

Now look again at that glass front. The new building was designed by the architect Günter Behnisch, working with partners, and it opened in 2005. It caused a real argument. After reunification, the city set strict design rules for Pariser Platz. Buildings were expected to have stone façades with regular windows, echoing the square's historic look. A wide sheet of glass did not fit that idea. Critics called it a provocation. Supporters called it honest.

The architects argued that a public academy should be open and transparent. Glass lets the street see in, and lets the building look out at the Gate. That was the point. Behind the new front, something older survives. The architects kept historic exhibition halls from the old academy, which had lasted through the war. So when you walk inside, you move from new glass into older rooms with a quieter, heavier feel.

The building also works as a passage. A route runs through it from Pariser Platz towards Behrenstraße at the back. Many people use it without realising they have walked through an arts academy. On the far side, you are close to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, with its grey concrete blocks. The short walk connects the ceremonial square with one of the city's most serious places of remembrance.

The academy is more than its exhibitions. It holds large archives of artists, writers, architects, composers, and theatre makers. Among them is material connected to the playwright Bertolt Brecht. These archives are used by researchers from around the world. The building also hosts readings, debates, concerts, and talks. Check what is on before you go, because some spaces are only open during particular events.

As you stand here, notice how the building sits between its neighbours. It does not try to win attention with height or ornament. Instead, it reflects the sky, the Gate, and the passing crowd. On a grey day, it looks almost silver. On a bright day, it fills with light and shadows from the stairs inside. The glass changes as the weather changes.

Before you walk on, look through the façade one more time. Somewhere in there are old halls that survived a war, offices that once planned a dictator's city, and archives full of voices that were silenced and later restored. Then turn around and take in the square, the Gate, and the people crossing it freely. That simple act of walking here is part of the story too.