Wrangelkiez & the Murals That Went Black
Why is it significant?
Stop at the corner of Schlesische Straße and Cuvrystraße and look at the firewalls of the old tenements nearby: tall, windowless surfaces where, for years, two of the most photographed murals in Kreuzberg used to stare down. Nothing of them is left. That is the story.
Key Facts
| Place | Wrangelkiez & the Murals That Went Black |
|---|---|
| Address | Cuvrystraße / Schlesische Straße, 10997 Berlin, Germany |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.49940, 13.44500 |
| Part of Walk | Berlin Kreuzberg: Street Art, Punk Clubs & the Landwehrkanal |
| Generated | Generated |
Stop at the corner of Schlesische Straße and Cuvrystraße and look at the firewalls of the old tenements nearby: tall, windowless surfaces where, for years, two of the most photographed murals in Kreuzberg used to stare down. Nothing of them is left. That is the story.
In 2007 and 2008 the Italian street artist Blu painted two enormous figures here. One showed two pale bodies pulling the masks off each other's faces. The other showed a man in a suit and tie, his wrists chained together by golden wristwatches. They looked out over an empty riverside lot, the Cuvrybrache, a wild patch of land where people camped, partied, grew vegetables and watched the sun set over the Spree.
In December 2014, with the lot sold and new buildings planned, Blu and his collaborators came back and painted both murals over in black. The message was simple and brutal: the art that had made this corner fashionable was being used to sell it, so they took it away. Berlin argued about it for weeks, and the dark walls became more famous than the paintings had been.
The streets around you are the Wrangelkiez, named after a Prussian field marshal and squeezed between the Spree, Görlitzer Park and the elevated railway. In the Cold War this was a dead end, with the border on two sides, and the U-Bahn line ended at Schlesisches Tor from 1961 until the 1990s. Rents were low, and students, squatters, artists and Turkish families moved in. That mix is what still gives these few blocks their character.
Look out for the smaller art as you walk: paste-ups on the lamp posts, tiny tiles above the doorbells, stencils at knee height. Kreuzberg's walls change all the time; whatever you see today may be gone next month. Now walk down Cuvrystraße, away from the river, until the houses open up into a wide, green park.