Last updated on 09/17/2026
Viktoria Tkachenko
I love showing Berlin below the surface once visitors have already ticked off the TV tower. My favourite thing is to take guests to the Haus Schwarzenberg or down to the Berliner Unterwelten, where the city suddenly feels completely different. For this list I gathered my favourite places that are guaranteed to surprise anyone.
Hidden in a backyard on Wriezener Straße is an 1889 ballroom with chandeliers, a walnut dance floor, and Gründerzeit furniture. Since 2022, Ballhaus Wedding has once again been a cultural venue in the Soldiner Kiez, offering tango evenings, poetry slams, improv theater, and concerts.
Heimathafen Neukölln performs in the historic ballroom of the Saalbau on Karl-Marx-Straße, beneath golden stucco and in front of a red velvet curtain. The program features original plays about Neukölln, concerts, poetry slams, and discussion evenings.
On Reinhardtstraße stands a massive high-rise bunker from 1942, with trees growing on its roof. Inside, Karen and Christian Boros have been displaying their collection of international contemporary art since 2008, viewable only by guided tour.
Behind the sandstone facade on Gerichtstraße in Wedding lies Berlin's first crematorium. Since 2013, it has become the silent green Kulturquartier, offering concerts, film programs, and exhibitions in the cupola hall and the underground concrete hall.
On Rosenthaler Straße, right next to the Hackesche Höfe, a passage leads into an unrestored courtyard full of street art. Haus Schwarzenberg has been an artist house since 1995, featuring a gallery, art-house cinema, bar, Monsterkabinett, and two museums dedicated to the history of the site.
Behind a green door in Gesundbrunnen U-Bahn station, a world of air-raid shelters, tunnels, and old cellars begins. The Berliner Unterwelten association has been leading tours through these facilities since the late 1990s, recounting Berlin's history from World War II to the Cold War.
In the cellar of Haus Schwarzenberg on Rosenthaler Straße, mechanical monsters come to life. The Monster Cabinet by the artist group Dead Chickens is a machine theater where automaton figures made from scrap and found objects dance, sing, and recite poems.
At Friedrichstraße station, there is a glass and steel pavilion that served as the departure hall at the border between East and West Berlin during GDR times. Today, the Tränenpalast (Palace of Tears) houses a permanent exhibition about everyday life in divided Germany, with free admission.
Beneath the field of stelae of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe lies the "Place of Information", an underground exhibition covering approximately 800 square meters. It tells the stories of people, families, and places of persecution, and admission is free.
Just a few steps from Klosterstraße subway station stand the walls of a 13th-century monastery church. The ruin of the Franciscan Monastery Church is one of Berlin's oldest buildings and today serves as an open-air exhibition space for contemporary art, with free admission.
