Potsdamer Tor

The Potsdam Gate (Potsdamer Tor) was a historic gate in Berlin's customs wall that marked the road from Friedrichstadt toward Potsdam. Originally built in the Baroque style in 1734, it was replaced in 1824 by a Neoclassical structure designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. This new gate consisted of two facing gatehouses with rows of Doric columns, forming the entrance to Leipziger Platz. While the old gate was replaced by a green space, the new buildings shaped the cityscape well into the second half of the 20th century.

The two gatehouses survived the demolition of the customs wall in 1867 and later served the postal service, with the southern building used for public business and the northern one for the internal pneumatic tube system. In World War II, the buildings were almost completely destroyed. The remaining foundations and stumps of the ruins were torn down in 1961 because they stood in the way of the construction of the Berlin Wall.

Today, only the entrances to the underground Potsdamer Platz station mark the site of the former gatehouses and recall the historical significance of the place. Pavilion buildings originally planned to reconstruct the gate buildings were never realized. Even so, the site remains a central point in the city's history, reflecting the connection between Berlin and Potsdam as well as the urban development of recent centuries.