East Side Gallery

Stretching for 1.3 kilometers along Mühlenstraße in Friedrichshain, the East Side Gallery is the longest preserved section of the Berlin Wall and at the same time the world's longest open-air gallery. 118 artists from 21 countries painted it with over a hundred works in the summer of 1990. Admission is free.

East Side Gallery on Mühlenstraße: the World’s Longest Open-Air Gallery

The East Side Gallery stretches for about 1.3 kilometers along Mühlenstraße in Friedrichshain, between Ostbahnhof and Oberbaumbrücke, with the Spree on one side and traffic on the other. It is the longest preserved section of the Berlin Wall and at the same time the world’s longest open-air gallery. Where guests from all over the world take photos today, until 1989 lay the border strip, which no one could enter without mortal danger. The viewing direction is noteworthy: because this section stands on the east side of the Spree, the painted surface did not face the West, but its own country. This section is one of the few places where the Wall has remained coherent and at full height over a long stretch. In the summer of 1990, 118 artists from 21 countries decorated the Wall with over a hundred paintings. The gallery was opened on September 28, 1990, and was added to the Berlin list of monuments in November 1991.

The Most Famous Pictures and the Future of the Monument

Among the most photographed motifs are Dmitri Vrubel’s Fraternal Kiss and Birgit Kinder’s Trabant breaking through the Wall. The Berlin Wall Foundation is responsible for its preservation; the last major renovation took place in 2009. The visitor information point at Mühlenstraße 73 serves as a meeting point for guided tours and a contact point for questions about the monument. Because the paintings are directly on a busy street, exhaust fumes, weather, and graffiti constantly damage them. The condition of the work Hands by Margaret Hunter and Peter Russell, the only preserved original painting from the initial decoration in 1990, is particularly delicate, as the paint layer is detaching. In October 2026, the German Foundation for Monument Protection provided 13,300 Euros for this, which also finances sample areas for graffiti removal. Since the 35th anniversary in September 2025, an initiative titled A Monument That Remains has also been running, which digitally maps all damages and measures temperatures. Admission to the East Side Gallery is free, a public guided tour costs 5.00 Euros, or 3.00 Euros reduced.