The area where today you can stroll along the Wallstraße was covered in fields and meadows up until the mid-17th century, and was known as New-Cölln am Wasser. From 1658 to 1683, the Great Prince-Elector had a rampart (Festungswall) built here to shield against potential attacks. This Wall later gave the street its name.

Just 40 years later, this once periphery area had turned into the city centre, and the wall was suddenly blocking the traffic. It was torn down to make room for the growing demands of manufacture and commerce.

In the course of Berlin’s history, the Wallstraße was home not only to Berlin’s first sugar works, a municipal lunatic asylum and the guests of the GDR’s Socialist Unity Party Central Committee. In its watery location along the Friedrichsgracht and with its laundries, hatters and rufflemakers, the early 20th century saw its rise as a centre for the Berlin textile industry.

The traces left by the history of this street, a place of flux and a point of intersection between different worldviews, are still apparent today: the original building development of Neu-Cölln am Wasser along the Märkisches Ufer sits comfortably next to historism-style Gründerzeit houses and GDR architecture.

Water, city expansion and the stronghold period until the late 17^th century

Sugar, freemasons and bathing in the 18^th and 19^th centuries

Textile industry, federations and city museum post-1900

Prominent role and central location along the wall in the GDR

Back to the centre post-1989