The Brandenburg Gate
Standing on the west side of Pariser Platz in the heart of Berlin, the Brandenburg Gate is an early neoclassical triumphal arch built between 1789 and 1793 for the Prussian king Frederick William II, to the design of architect Carl Gotthard Langhans. It is the last surviving city gate in Berlin — the only one left of the eighteen that once ringed the city — and Germany's best-known landmark and national symbol. So much of the 19th and 20th centuries has passed beneath it: Napoleon marched through it, the Cold War pressed it hard against the border between East and West Berlin, and after 1990 it became the emblem of a Germany and a Europe overcoming division. But the thing truly worth stopping for is the four-horse chariot crowning the gate, and the whole cycle of mythological reliefs hidden along the entablature, the attic, and inside the five passageways.
Germany · 4 The overlooked corners inside
The overlooked corners inside
The Quadriga
Look up at the four-horse chariot set squarely atop the gate — the Quadriga is the single most important artistic feature of the Brandenburg Gate, and Langhans reserved a place for it from the moment he designed the building. Driving the chariot is Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory, borne into Berlin by her four horses to symbolize peace arriving in the city. How can you tell she is Victoria and not the Greek Nike or the peace goddess Eirene? The answer is the pair of wings on her back. The chariot was raised onto the gate in 1793, cast in copper and left ungilded. But what you see now is not the original — only a single horse's head survives from it, kept in the Märkisches Museum in Berlin.
Sources: de.wikipedia.org
The Hercules Reliefs
Step beneath the gate into the five passageways and look up at the walls — every passage carries reliefs of the Hercules myth. Two are set on each side of every passageway, twenty sandstone reliefs in all across the five. Conceived around 1791, the cycle deliberately uses the strength and labours of the Greek hero to allude to the deeds of Frederick the Great. Schadow himself later thought them too well hidden, complaining that these "low reliefs tucked away in the five passageways are seen by no one at all" — which is exactly why they remain the easiest thing here to walk past and miss today.
The Attic Relief
On the attic below the Quadriga, facing into the city of Berlin, sits a single large sandstone relief about 1.51 metres high. The theme Langhans set for it is "the defence of the innocent with the weapons of justice." Most visitors let their gaze rest only on the chariot above and rarely notice this narrative relief at its feet, completed in 1791 — and fewer still know that the other side of the gate, the face turned outward, was meant to carry a matching relief that to this day remains a blank space.
The Metope Reliefs
Walk around the entablature above the columns and you will find a frieze of metopes on both the east and west faces — sixteen square reliefs per face, each about one square metre. The set on the west face is the only decoration on the entire outward side of the gate. Its theme, set by Langhans, is the battle of the Lapiths and the Centaurs, modeled on the matching metopes on the south side of the Parthenon in Athens; since antiquity that battle has been read as an allegory of barbarism assailing civilization, with civilization prevailing in the end.
FAQ
What overlooked corners are worth seeing inside The Brandenburg Gate?
The Quadriga, The Hercules Reliefs, The Attic Relief and more — 4 spots in all, each with sources and a guide in your language to read or listen to on the spot.
Is the The Brandenburg Gate guide free?
All 4 guides are free.