Alexanderplatz
— — the square the GDR built to be seen.
Not only on a wall.
“The wide square at the foot of Berlin's television tower, the Fernsehturm, which rises 368 metres above the city and was finished by the GDR in 1969. The Weltzeituhr keeps time in twenty-four zones at the centre of the plaza. The square took its name from a visit by Tsar Alexander I in 1805 and has been rebuilt more than once since. — from the studio
Alexanderplatz, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Alexanderplatz is a large public square in the Mitte district of central Berlin, between the medieval Marienkirche to the west and the broad Karl-Marx-Allee that runs east toward Friedrichshain. It took its modern name from a state visit by Tsar Alexander I of Russia in October 1805 and grew through the nineteenth century as a market and transit hub. The square was almost entirely destroyed in the Second World War, then redeveloped by the East German government in the 1960s as a showcase plaza of the GDR.
The Berliner Fernsehturm, the television tower that anchors the square, rises 368 metres above street level and was completed in 1969 by the GDR as both a broadcast facility and a political statement. The Weltzeituhr, or World Clock, designed by Erich John and installed the same year, rotates through twenty-four time zones at the centre of the plaza. The Park Inn hotel, the Galeria Kaufhof façade, and the relocated Marx-Engels-Forum statues frame the edges of the modern square.
The square hosts one of Berlin's largest Weihnachtsmärkte each Advent, with the Christmas market typically running from the last week of November through New Year's Eve around the Neptune Fountain and beneath the television tower. In warmer months the open ground serves political demonstrations, fan zones for major football tournaments, and the annual Berlin festival circuit. The U-Bahn and S-Bahn station beneath the plaza, Alexanderplatz, is one of the busiest transit interchanges in the German capital.