Europa-Center
The Europa-Center is a large building complex on Breitscheidplatz in Berlin’s Charlottenburg district. It combines a shopping mall with a tall 86-meter high-rise tower.
It was built between 1963 and 1965 and is now a historically preserved building. The site originally had a residential building since 1897, opposite the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, designed in Neo-Romanesque style by Franz Schwechten. The area was part of West Berlin’s fashionable “New West,” and from 1916 the Romanisches Café there was a popular meeting place for writers, artists, and theater people.
During World War II, a RAF raid in November 1943 destroyed the building. After the war the site stood empty for years and was used for various makeshift purposes, including by wrestlers, circus performers, missionaries, food stalls, and briefly a cinema. After Berlin was divided by the Wall, redevelopment began. West Berlin businessman Karl Heinz Pepper led the redevelopment of Breitscheidplatz’s eastern side, hiring architects Helmut Hentrich and Hubert Petschnigg to design an office and shopping complex inspired by American malls. Construction started in 1963, with art input from Egon Eiermann, and the Europa-Center opened on 2 April 1965.
The complex covers about 80,000 square meters and includes a two-story foundation with basements and two courtyards, a cinema, a hotel, an apartment block, and the 86-meter high-rise with 21 floors and 13,000 square meters of office space. In 2005 there were around 100 shops and eateries. On top of the high-rise sits a large Mercedes-Benz star-in-a-circle logo. It weighs 15,000 kilograms, has a 10-meter diameter, turns about twice a minute, and is lit with 681 fluorescent tubes at night.
The shopping mall originally had an ice rink (closed in 1974) and the Royal Palast cinema, which opened with the world’s largest projection screen in 1965 and closed in 2004. There was also an observation deck on the roof. Today’s attractions include The Clock of Flowing Time, a 13-meter-high water clock, and the Mengenlehreuhr clock originally located on Kurfürstendamm. The basement houses a cabaret theatre and a large Irish pub. The Europa-Center has appeared in films such as The Quiller Memorandum (1966) and Christiane F. (1981). Since 1965 the cabaret Die Stachelschweine has been part of the complex.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 06:34 (CET).