Hackesche Höfe

Eight interconnected courtyards hiding behind an unassuming facade on Rosenthaler Straße. Step through the entrance and you're in the largest courtyard complex in Germany, built in 1906 by Kurt Berndt in Jugendstil — German Art Nouveau. The first courtyard is the showpiece: glazed tiles in blue and green by August Endell form geometric patterns across the facades, three stories high.

This was originally a mixed-use development — apartments above, workshops and factories below. The courtyards were industrial spaces, not the boutique-and-cafe labyrinth they are today. The building survived the war relatively intact, then spent forty years as part of East Berlin, neglected but not demolished.

After reunification, the Höfe were restored and became the cultural anchor of the Spandauer Vorstadt neighbourhood. Today they house galleries, independent cinemas, theatres, restaurants, and small shops. The Chamäleon Theatre in the first courtyard stages contemporary circus and variety shows in a space that was originally a ballroom.

The neighbourhood around the Höfe — bounded roughly by Hackescher Markt, Rosenthaler Platz, and Weinmeisterstraße — was historically Berlin's Jewish quarter. The Neue Synagoge, with its distinctive golden dome, is two blocks west. Before the Holocaust, this area was the centre of Jewish cultural life in Germany.