Lustgarten

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  Lustgarten and Berliner Dom

• Flowering lime trees and potted plants in the Lustgarten in front of the Altes Museum

• Anna and Sofiia from Ukraine have their photo taken by their friend Anastsia in the pleasure garden in front of a fountain.

The Lustgarten is located on Museum Island in the Mitte district and was once part of the Berlin Palace. Today, the spacious square is a popular place for Berliners and tourists to meet and linger.

Between Berlin Cathedral, the Old Museum and Kupfergraben, the Lustgarten (Pleasure Garden) invites you to linger. The small park in Berlin-Mitte was originally part of the Berlin Palace and was laid out as a kitchen garden. Elector Johann Georg had everything that was needed in the palace kitchen planted there. During the Thirty Years' War, the garden became overgrown. After the end of the war, the two-hectare area was laid out as a pleasure garden based on the Dutch model. Flowers, potatoes and spices now grew here. An orangery, pleasure houses and aviaries and a water garden with fountains were created. Statues were erected in the arcades. Thanks to this redesign, the pleasure garden became a popular meeting place for the general population.

From pleasure garten to parade ground and back

During the reign of Frederick William I, expenditure on the pleasure garden was reduced from 1713. The pleasure garden was converted into a parade ground. It was not until 1790 that the square was landscaped again and planted with trees. After the Wars of Liberation, Frederick William III planned a representative center in Berlin with the construction of new buildings, the eastern end of which was to be the Lustgarten. Peter Joseph Lenné redesigned the pleasure garden, dividing the area into several lawns and erecting a 13-metre-high fountain. The large granite bowl was added in 1831. In the following years, the Lustgarten was redesigned again and again.

Politics lays claim to the Lustgarten: paving stones instead of grass

During the years of the Weimar Republic, the Lustgarten was used for political meetings. After the National Socialists came to power, the greenery of the Lustgarten had to make way once again: Where plants once grew, people now marched on cobblestones. The granite bowl was also removed. After the end of the war, the Lustgarten became part of the new Marx-Engels-Platz under the leadership of the SED and remained a place for rallies and marches. The granite bowl was reinstalled in 1981.

Redesign after reunification

It was not until reunification that the Lustgarten got its old name back. After considering the redesign of the square, Atelier Loidl was commissioned with the implementation. Since then, the Lustgarten has once again become a popular green space in Berlin-Mitte, with seating under trees, a water fountain and well-tended green areas that invite you to take a sightseeing break. Afterwards, the Humboldt Forum, Berlin Cathedral, Museum Island and the Altes Museum can be explored again with renewed energy.