Next time you’re walking the street in Berlin, look down and you’ll see that the pavement is arranged according to a deliberate, regular pattern made of three parts. First, closest to houses and front doors, the pavement is cobblestone-style, formed of a mosaic of small roughly square stones. In the middle, the Gehweg, or central footpath, the pavement slabs are larger. Close to the curb, the mosaic pattern returns. This simple structure was first implemented in Berlin around 200 years ago and, with subtle changes, it has continued ever since.
If the street is older, this inner channel of the pavement might be formed by hefty granite rectangles.
The central path of Berlin pavements usually conforms to two basic types. If the street is older, this inner channel of the pavement might be formed by hefty granite rectangles. If it was laid somewhere after 1900, you’ll see a standardised diamond pattern of 35 x 35 cm slabs of artificial stone mixture, and edge stones formed into a row of five-sided polygons, known for their shape as Bishop’s Hats.
Most of the heavy central stones of granite laid down the middle of Berlin’s older sidewalks come from Silesia, near Wrocław, in today’s Poland. They would have been brought to the city in the middle of the 19th century on barges that traversed the Spree and Oder rivers. These cumbersome stone tablets are more than 300 million years old, formed from magma that cooled and solidified underground. Speckled with red and black colourations from iron deposits, quartz and feldspar, these slabs appear on their visible side like smooth stone cushions; underneath, they remain ragged mountainous rock.
On each side of the central pattern, the smaller mosaic would have originally been made not from granite, as they are today, but from limestone quarried in the German town of Bernburg. For this reason, the pattern has become known as the Bernburger Mosaik. These small stones – each between 4 and 6 cm – are laid into sand by workers operating in teams of two or three (the third worker often lining up the stones for the other two to lay). This is highly skilled work. The space between the stones must be no more than 6mm wide, and an experienced workman can expect to complete between eight to 10 square metres of pavement in a day, working on his knees. This mosaic has a precise pattern, too – an outer fringe of stones runs parallel to the curb or houses, while the central spread of stones are laid at an angle of 45 degrees.
The pattern has become known as the Bernburger Mosaik
The pattern on Berlin streets was not dictated by a municipal regulation, as you might think, but was rather invented by a local wine tavern. In 1825, Lutter & Wegner on Gendarmenmarkt was the first place in Berlin to set out stones in this way. It has cost them ever since: the tavern is still required to pay for the upkeep of the heavy stones outside their front door. Back then, Berlin’s streets were either unpaved or scattered with irregular, pointed stones that meant even a short walk could hurt your feet. As the streets were laid, people began to experience the city in a new way: now the middle classes could idle in the streets, taking in the modern city. With paved streets comes the flâneur.
- This article relied on Frank Peter Jäger’s book about Berlin urban design, Berlin – Die Schönheit des Alltäglichen, available from Jovis Verlag
