Unquestionably, the Brandenburg Gate is Berlin’s most well-known historical site (Brandenburger Tor). It now stands as a symbol of peace and unity after once representing a divided country. King Frederick Wilhelm II ordered the construction of this imposing Neoclassical gate in 1788. The Propylaea on the Acropolis of Athens served as inspiration for the design of this gate. Just a block away from the Reichstag building, the 26-meter-tall sandstone monument may be found at Pariser Platz in the Mitte neighborhood.
As a blocked gate along the Berlin Wall, it was a popular location for West Berliner protests during the Cold War. The setting for US President Ronald Reagan’s 1987 appeal to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to take down the wall also makes it notable.
It was also the site of a touching gesture in 1999, when political leaders from several nations, including Poland’s Lech Walesa, Mikhail Gorbachev, and then-Angela Germany’s Merkel, went through the gate together to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall ten years earlier.
To prepare for Germany’s 25th anniversary of reunification, CyArk collaborated with the Landesdenkmalamt Berlin and the Institute of Photogrammetry at the University of Stuttgart to scan the Brandenburg Gate and the entirety of Pariser Platz in 2015. The site was digitally documented using photogrammetry and LiDAR technology to add to the Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung and Umwelt in Berlin’s historical archive of documentation and conservation materials.
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