14 guided tours, 14 perspectives

The Mitte Berlin Foundation will provide answers to these questions on Saturday, 12 September 2026, with an extraordinary event. At 12 noon, 14 guided tours led by renowned Berlin experts will set off simultaneously from the Neptune Fountain in different directions across the historic city centre.

With this event for Open Monument Day, the foundation aims to deepen knowledge of Berlin’s city centre and make it accessible to a wide public. Citizens are invited, as are representatives from politics and public administration. All participants will first meet at the Neptune Fountain and then split up to join the various tours.

“Berlin’s Mitte is far more than a collection of prominent individual buildings. Here, the city’s history can be read as if under a magnifying glass, from its medieval origins through the Baroque royal capital and the upheavals of the 19th and 20th centuries right up to the urban planning issues of our present day,” says Dr Benedikt Goebel, urban researcher and chairman of the foundation. “Anyone wishing to discuss how this city centre should develop in future must know what once stood here, what has been lost and what traces remain to this day. This is precisely what we aim to explore through our guided tours.”

From Lessing to Schinkel to Berlin, the forgotten fashion capital

The range of guided tours illustrates just how many different stories overlap within a small area. Architect and heritage conservationist Martina Abri focuses on the Friedrichswerder Church and the ‘Probeecke’ at the Bauakademie. Author and Berlin expert Michael Bienert follows in the footsteps of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and explores a Berlin literary centre that is largely forgotten today. Urban planner and social scientist Harald Bodenschatz turns his attention to the architectural legacy of the Nazi era in Berlin’s Mitte district.

Fashion and contemporary historian Gesa Kessemeier offers a further perspective. Her tour traces Berlin’s now-hidden origins as an internationally significant fashion city, from the former N. Israel department store via the Herrmann Gerson fashion and couture house to Hausvogteiplatz, the former centre of Berlin’s fashion wholesale trade.

Alexanderplatz is also the subject of a tour of its own. Transport planner Bodo Fuhrmann traces its urban development. Archaeologist Michael Malliaris, meanwhile, uses specific locations and excavation findings to demonstrate just how fundamentally the area around today’s Humboldt Forum has changed since the 13th century. Archaeologist Claudia Melisch leads a tour to Petriplatz and thus into the heart of historic Cölln.

The Lost City and the Future Centre

During his guided tour, Goebel himself reveals the locations of some of Old Berlin’s most important lost buildings. Historical maps and illustrations help to pinpoint buildings such as the Gerichtslaube, the Palais Wartenberg, the Zornsche Apotheke and the Blankenfelder Haus where they once stood.

The tour led by Berlin architect and urban planner Tobias Nöfer demonstrates that looking back always raises questions about the city’s future. Under the title ‘Unobjective Remarks on Berlin’s City Centre’, he explores the architectural potential for a more attractive historic city centre, projects that have been stalled for years, and the conflicting objectives behind them.

Hubertus Müller also offers a unique perspective. As a contemporary witness, the architect and art educator leads visitors through the historic centre, linking personal memories with Berlin’s urban development.

The programme also includes some unusual ways of exploring the city: on a cycle tour, André Franke examines the historic centre as a circular urban space and explores issues of accessibility, barriers and the quality of the environment for residents and visitors.

Meeting point for all guided tours: the Neptune Fountain

“We are not interested in viewing Berlin’s city centre as a museum,” says Goebel. “Rather, knowledge of its history is a prerequisite for discussing its future in an informed manner. Through 14 different perspectives, we want to show just how much there is still to discover here, and how many questions remain open regarding the future development of this special place.”

All 14 guided tours start on Saturday, 12 September 2026, at 12 noon at the Neptune Fountain. No prior booking is required. Participants will choose which tour to join on the spot. The tours usually last around two hours and take place whatever the weather. As longer distances will be covered on foot, suitable footwear is recommended. The exception is the tour led by André Franke, which is explicitly designated as a cycle tour.

As with previous editions of the event, the Mitte Berlin Foundation expects several hundred participants.

• Date: Saturday, 12 September 2026
• Start: 12.00
• Meeting point: Neptune Fountain, Berlin-Mitte
• Participation: no prior registration required
• Duration: approx. two hours
• Organiser: Stiftung Mitte Berlin

Online event HERE

Stiftung Mitte Berlin (SMB):

In the wake of the destruction of the 20th century, the task of the 21st century is to restore Berlin’s former old town to its status as the very heart of the city and of civil society. To this end, the entrepreneur and author Marie-Luise Schwarz-Schilling (1932–2024) founded the Stiftung Mitte Berlin in 2022. The foundation is committed to creating a new old town that is people-friendly.