Brandenburg Gate

At the end of a grand boulevard, a great neoclassical gate of columns rises, crowned by a bronze chariot drawn by four horses, the most recognised monument in the city. This is the Brandenburg Gate, a symbol of Berlin and, through its turbulent history, of Germany itself.

The gate was built in the late eighteenth century as a grand city gate, modelled on the gateways of ancient Greece, a triumphal entrance to the old royal city. Its columns and the chariot of victory on top made it the noblest of the city's gates.

For two centuries it has stood at the centre of the nation's history, watching armies march through in triumph and defeat, and becoming, in the twentieth century, a stage for the country's darkest and most hopeful moments.

When the city was divided after the war, the gate stood stranded in the no-man's-land beside the wall, sealed off and unreachable, a symbol of a divided nation. Its reopening, when the wall fell, became one of the defining images of reunification.

Today it stands again at the heart of a reunited city, on a grand square, freely open to all, a place of celebration, protest, and gathering, where the city marks its great occasions.

The chariot on top, carrying a figure of victory, has its own story, taken to France as loot by a conqueror and later brought back in triumph, so even the crowning sculpture carries the history of the nation's rises and falls.

The gate is best seen on foot, approached across its square, and it is floodlit at night, when the pale columns and the bronze chariot stand out against the dark, a favourite hour for photographs.

It anchors a quarter of the city's greatest landmarks, with the parliament, the great park, the boulevard of lime trees, and the memorial to the murdered Jews all within a short walk, so it is the natural centre of a day in the historic core.

There is little to do at the gate beyond stand before it and take in its history, but few monuments carry so much meaning in so simple a form, which is exactly why people come.

The square around it is lively, with performers and crowds, and from here the grand boulevard runs east into the old centre and the park stretches west, so the gate is a hinge between the two halves of the city's heart.

Stand beneath the columns where a wall once sealed the city in two, with the chariot above and the crowds passing freely through, and the weight of what this gate has witnessed settles around you. When you walk on down the boulevard, it stands behind you, the city's stubborn symbol of endurance and reunion.