Fernsehturm Berlin
— — the silver sphere the city sees from everywhere.
Not only on a wall.
“The tallest structure in Germany, 368 metres above Alexanderplatz in central Berlin. The GDR finished it in October 1969 as a symbol of socialist progress; sunlight catches the steel sphere as a cross, which West Berliners called the Pope's Revenge. The observation deck sits at 203 metres, with a slowly revolving restaurant above it. From a clear evening at the bar, Berliners can pick out the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag dome, and the cathedral roofs below.
Fernsehturm Berlin, 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.
The Fernsehturm stands beside Alexanderplatz in Mitte, the central borough of Berlin, just east of the Spree. At 368 metres it is the tallest structure in Germany and the fourth tallest in Europe. Construction began in 1965 under the German Democratic Republic and the tower opened on 3 October 1969. It was conceived under the chief architect Hermann Henselmann and built by a state collective drawing on Swedish engineering. The steel sphere holds an observation deck at 203 metres and a revolving restaurant, Sphere, on the level immediately above it.
In strong sunlight the stainless-steel cladding of the sphere catches the light as a cross, a reflection West Berliners nicknamed Rache des Papstes, the Pope's Revenge, since the officially atheist GDR could not paint it away. The tower remains visible from almost everywhere inside the city, with a clear-air sightline from Tempelhofer Feld six kilometres south. At night a slow red aircraft-warning light pulses near the antenna. The view from the observation deck reaches the Müggelsee on a clear evening, about twenty kilometres east.
The Fernsehturm is reached at Alexanderplatz, served by U-Bahn lines U2, U5, and U8, S-Bahn lines S3, S5, S7, and S9, and several tram routes. Timed tickets to the observation deck are sold through the official site; queues on summer Saturdays can run an hour without a reservation. The revolving Sphere restaurant takes a full turn in about thirty minutes and books by separate reservation. The deck opens daily, with shorter winter hours from November through February.