Visitors and residents new to Berlin - especially those who have been to other German cities - often have a common question upon first experiencing it: Why doesn’t Berlin have the typical ‘Altstadt’ at its center?
If you’ve been to other German cities and towns, they are all, to some degree, centered around an “old town” plaza that is centered on two anchors: a large, old church and a large, old town hall.
And Berlin does have this physical center area in Alexanderplatz - where the Rotes Rathaus is, as well as the Nikolaiviertel, the oldest part of the original city of Berlin. On its borders reside the Berliner Dom, the elaborate neo-Renaissance cathedral church of the imperial kaisers, and also the controversially reconstructed royal Berliner Schloss (Berlin Palace).
But it doesn’t really feel much like the center of Berlin, just one of many popular places in a very large metropolis.
Some have speculated that the total destruction of most of the city d…
