Early history to the 18th century A hospital stood at the location of present-day in the 13th century. Named (St. George), the hospital gave its name to the nearby (George Gate) of the
Berlin city wall. Outside the city walls, this area was largely undeveloped until around 1400, when the first settlers began building
thatched cottages. As a
gallows was located close by, the area earned the nickname the ('Devil's Pleasure Garden'). The George Gate became the most important of Berlin's city gates during the 16th century, being the main entry point for goods arriving along the roads to the north and north-east of the city, for example from , and , and the big
Hanseatic cities on the
Baltic Sea. After the
Thirty Years' War, the city wall was strengthened. From 1658 to 1683, a citywide
fortress was constructed to plans by the
Linz master builder, . The new fortress contained 13 bastions connected by ramparts and was preceded by a moat measuring up to wide. Within the new fortress, many of the historic city wall gates were closed. For example, the southeastern Gate was closed but the Georgian Gate remained open, making the Georgian Gate an even more important entrance to the city. In 1681, the trade of cattle and pig fattening was banned within the city.
Frederick William, the Great Elector, granted cheaper plots of land, waiving the basic interest rate, in the area in front of the Georgian Gate. Settlements grew rapidly and a weekly cattle market was established on the square in front of the Gate. The area developed into a suburb – the – which continued to flourish into the late 17th century. Unlike the southwestern suburbs (, ) which were strictly and geometrically planned, the suburbs in the northeast (, and the ) proliferated without plan. Despite a building ban imposed in 1691, more than 600 houses existed in the area by 1700. At that time, the George Gate was a rectangular gatehouse with a tower. Next to the tower stood a remaining tower from the original
medieval city walls. The upper floors of the gatehouse served as the city jail. A drawbridge spanned the moat and the gate was locked at nightfall by the garrison using heavy oak planks. A highway ran through the cattle market to the northeast towards . To the right stood the George chapel, an orphanage and a hospital that was donated by the Elector
Sophie Dorothea in 1672. Next to the chapel stood a dilapidated medieval
plague house which was demolished in 1716. Behind it was a rifleman's field and an inn, later named the . By the end of the 17th century, 600 to 700 families lived in this area. They included butchers, cattle herders, shepherds and dairy farmers. The George chapel was upgraded to the George church and received its own preacher.
(1701–1805) After his coronation in on 6 May 1701 the
Prussian King
Frederick I entered Berlin through the George Gate. This led to the gate being renamed the
King's Gate, and the surrounding area became known in official documents as (King's Gate Square). The suburb was renamed (or 'royal suburbs' short). In 1734, the
Berlin Customs Wall, which initially consisted of a ring of
palisade fences, was reinforced and grew to encompass the old city and its suburbs, including . This resulted in the King's Gate losing importance as an entry point for goods into the city. The gate was finally demolished in 1746. By the end of the 18th century, the basic structure of the royal suburbs of the had been developed. It consisted of irregular-shaped blocks of buildings running along the historic highways which once carried goods in various directions out of the gate. At this time, the area contained large factories (silk and wool), such as the (one of Berlin's first cloth factories, located in a former barn) and a workhouse established in 1758 for beggars and homeless people, where the inmates worked a man-powered treadmill to turn a mill. Soon, military facilities came to dominate the area, such as the 1799–1800 military parade grounds designed by
David Gilly. At this time, the residents of the were mostly craftsmen, petty-bourgeois, retired soldiers and manufacturing workers. In the southeast of the square, the cloth factory buildings were converted into the Theater by at a cost of 120,000
Taler. The foundation stone was laid on 31 August 1823 and the opening ceremony occurred on 4 August 1824. Sales were poor, forcing the theatre to close on 3 June 1851. Thereafter, the building was used for wool storage, then as a tenement building, and finally as an inn called until the building's demolition in 1932. During these years, the Alexanderplatz was populated by
fish wives,
water carriers, sand sellers,
rag-and-bone men,
knife sharpeners and
day laborers. During the
March Revolution of 1848, large-scale street fighting occurred on the streets of Alexanderplatz and revolutionaries used barricades to block the route from Alexanderplatz to the city. The novelist and poet
Theodor Fontane, who worked in the vicinity in a nearby pharmacy, participated in the construction of barricades and later described how he used materials from the Theater to barricade . The
Königsstadt district continued to grow throughout the 19th century, with three-storey developments already existing at the beginning of the century and fourth storeys being constructed from the middle of the century. By the end of the century, most of the buildings were already five storeys high. The large factories and military facilities gave way to housing developments, mainly rental housing for the factory workers who had just moved into the city, and trading houses. At the beginning of the 1870s, the Berlin administration had the former moat filled to build the Berlin city railway, which was opened in 1882 along with the train station
Bahnhof Alexanderplatz. From 1883 to 1884, the Grand Hotel, a neo-Renaissance building with 185 rooms and shops beneath was constructed. From 1886 to 1890,
Hermann Blankenstein built the police headquarters, a huge brick building whose tower on the northern corner dominated the building. In 1890, a district court at Alexanderplatz was also established. In 1886, the local authorities built a central market hall west of the rail tracks, which replaced the weekly market on the Alexanderplatz in 1896. During the end of the 19th century, the emerging private traffic and the first
horse bus lines dominated the northern part of the square, the southern part (the former parade ground) remained quiet, having green space elements added by garden director in 1889. The northwest of the square contained a second, smaller green space where, in 1895, the copper
Berolina statue by sculptor was erected.
Between Empire and the Nazi era (1900–1940) and the
Berlin Cathedral, c. 1930 At the beginning of the 20th century, experienced its heyday. In 1901, founded the first German cabaret, the , in the former ('Secession stage') at , initially under the name . It was announced as " as upscale entertainment with artistic ambitions. Emperor-loyal and market-oriented stands the uncritical amusement in the foreground." The merchants , and opened large department stores on : (1904–1911), (1910–1911) and (1911). marketed itself as a department store for the Berlin people, whereas modelled itself as a
department store for the world. In October 1905, the first section of the department store opened to the public. It was designed by architects
and, who had already won second prize in the competition for the construction of the building. The department store underwent further construction phases and, in 1911, had a commercial space of and the longest department store façade in the world at in length. For the construction of the department store, by architects and , the were removed in 1910 and now stand in the Park in . In October 1908, the ('the teacher's house') was opened next to the at . It was designed by and Henry Gross. The building belonged to the ('teachers’ association'), who rented space on the ground floor of the building out to a pastry shop and restaurant to raise funds for the association. The building housed the teachers' library which survived two world wars, and today is integrated into the library for educational historical research. ran out of in all directions in a star shape. The subway station was designed by
Alfred Grenander and followed the colour-coded order of subway stations, which began with green at and ran through to dark red. In the
Golden Twenties, was the epitome of the lively, pulsating cosmopolitan city of Berlin, rivalled in the city only by . Many of the buildings and rail bridges surrounding the platz bore large billboards that illuminated the night. The Berlin cigarette company Manoli had a famous billboard at the time which contained a ring of neon tubes that constantly circled a black ball. The proverbial "" of those years was characterized as "". Writer wrote a poem referencing the advert, and the composer
Rudolf Nelson made the legendary with the dancer
Lucie Berber. The writer named his novel, , after the square, and filmed parts of his 1927 film (
Berlin: The Symphony of the Big City) at .
Destruction of (1940–1945) One of Berlin's largest
air-raid shelters during the
Second World War was situated under . It was built between 1941 and 1943 for the by . The war reached in early April 1945. The
Berolina statue had already been removed in 1944 and probably melted down for use in arms production. During the
Battle of Berlin,
Red Army artillery bombarded the area around . The battles of the last days of the war destroyed considerable parts of the historic , as well as many of the buildings around . The had entrenched itself within the tunnels of the underground system. Hours before fighting ended in Berlin on 2 May 1945, troops of the
SS detonated explosives inside the north–south tunnel under the
Canal to slow the advance of the Red Army towards Berlin's city centre. The entire tunnel
flooded, as well as large sections of the network via connecting passages at the underground station. Many of those seeking shelter in the tunnels were killed. Reconstruction planning for post-war Berlin gave priority to the dedicated space to accommodate the rapidly growing motor traffic in inner-city thoroughfares. This idea of a traffic-oriented city was already based on considerations and plans by and from the 1930s.
After German reunification (1989) Ever since
German reunification, has undergone a gradual process of change with many of the surrounding buildings being renovated. After the political turnaround in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall,
socialist urban planning and architecture of the 1970s no longer corresponded to the current ideas of an inner-city square. Investors demanded planning security for their construction projects. After initial discussions with the public, the goal quickly arose to reinstate 's tram network for better connections to surrounding city quarters. In 1993, an urban planning ideas competition for architects took place to redesign the square and its surrounding area. In the first phase, there were 16 submissions, five of which were selected for the second phase of the competition. These five architects had to adapt their plans to detailed requirements. For example, the return of the Alex's trams was planned, with the implementation to be made in several stages. The winner, who was determined on 17 September 1993, was the Berlin architect . 's plan was based on Behrens’ design, provided a horseshoe-shaped area of seven- to eight-storey buildings and high towers with 42 floors. The and the – both listed buildings – would form the southwestern boundary. Second place went to the design by and . The proposal of the architecture firm Kny & Weber, which was strongly based on the horseshoe shape of Wagner, finally won the third place. The design by was chosen on 7 June 1994 by the
Berlin Senate as a basis for the further transformation of . In 1993, architect 's master plan for a major redevelopment including the construction of several skyscrapers was published. In 1995, completed the renovation of the . In 1998, the first tram returned to , and in 1999, the town planning contracts for the implementation of and 's plans were signed by the landowners and the investors.
21st century |left station at the alexanderplatz On 2 April 2000, the Senate finally fixed the development plan for . The purchase contracts between investors and the Senate Department for Urban Development were signed on 23 May 2002, thus laying the foundations for the development. The CUBIX
multiplex cinema (
CineStar Cubix am Alexanderplatz, styled CUBIX), which opened in November 2000, joined the team of
Berlin International Film Festival cinemas in 2007, and the festival shows films on three of its screens. Renovation of the department store began in 2004, led by Berlin professor of architecture, and his son . The building was enlarged by about and has since operated under the name . Beginning with the reconstruction of the department store in 2004, and the biggest underground railway station of Berlin, some buildings were redesigned and new structures built on the square's south-eastern side. Sidewalks were expanded to shrink one of the avenues, a new underground garage was built, and commuter tunnels meant to keep pedestrians off the streets were removed. In 2005, the began work to extend the tram line from to (Alex II). This route was originally to be opened in 2000 but was postponed several times. After further delays caused by the
2006 FIFA World Cup, the route opened on 30 May 2007. In February 2006, the redesign of the walk-in plaza began. The redevelopment plans were provided by the architecture firm
Gerkan, Marg and Partners and the Hamburg-based company . The final plans emerged from a design competition launched by the state of Berlin in 2004. However, the paving work was temporarily interrupted a few months after the start of construction by the 2006 FIFA World Cup and all excavation pits had to be provisionally asphalted over. The construction work could only be completed at the end of 2007. The renovation of , the largest Berlin underground station, had been ongoing since the mid-1990s and was finally completed in October 2008. The was given a pavement of yellow granite, bordered by grey mosaic paving around the buildings. Wall AG modernized the 1920s-era underground toilets at a cost of 750,000 euros. The total redesign cost amounted to around 8.7 million euros. On 12 September 2007 the Alexa shopping centre opened. It is located in the immediate vicinity of the , on the site of the old Berlin police headquarters. With a sales area, it is one of the largest shopping centres in Berlin. In May 2007, the Texas property development company
Hines began building a six-story commercial building named . The building was built on a plot of , which, according to the plans, closes the square to the east and thus reduces the area of the Platz. The building was opened on 25 March 2009. At the beginning of 2007, the construction company created an underground garage with three levels below the , located between the hotel tower and the building, which cost 25 million euros to build and provides space for around 700 cars. The opening took place on 26 November 2010. At the same time, the Senate narrowed from almost wide to wide (), thus reducing it to three lanes in each direction. Behind the station, next to the CUBIX cinema in the immediate vicinity of the TV tower, the high residential and commercial building, Alea 101, was built between 2012 and 2014. it was assessed that due to a lack of demand the skyscrapers planned in 1993 were unlikely to be constructed. The area is the largest area for crime in Berlin. As of October 2017, was classified a ("crime-contaminated location") by the (General Safety and Planning Laws). ==Today and future plans==