Editing Potsdamer Platz (section)

== Historical background ==
The history of Potsdamer Platz can be traced to 29 October 1685, when the [[Edict of Potsdam|Tolerance Edict of Potsdam]] was signed, whereby [[Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg|Frederick William]], [[Prince-Elector|Elector]] of [[Brandenburg-Prussia]] from 1640 to 1688, allowed large numbers of religious refugees, including Jews from [[Habsburg monarchy|Austria]] and [[Huguenot]]s expelled from France, to settle on his territory to repopulate it following the [[Thirty Years' War]] (1618–48). Several new districts were founded around the city's perimeter, just outside the old fortifications. The largest of these was [[Friedrichstadt (Berlin)|Friedrichstadt]], just south west of the historic core of Berlin, begun in 1688 and named after the new elector, Frederick William III, who became King [[Frederick I of Prussia]]. Its street layout followed the [[Baroque]]-style grid pattern much favoured at the time, and was based on two main axes: [[Friedrichstraße]] running north–south, and [[Leipziger Strasse]] running east–west. All the new suburbs were absorbed into Berlin around 1709–10. In 1721-3 a south-westwards expansion of Friedrichstadt was planned under the orders of King [[Frederick William I of Prussia|Frederick William I]], and this was completed in 1732–4 by architect [[Philipp Gerlach]] (1679–1748). In this expansion, a new north–south axis emerged: [[Wilhelmstrasse]].

In 1735–1737, after Friedrichstadt's expansion was complete, the [[Berlin Customs Wall]] was erected around the city's new perimeter. Potsdamer Platz would eventually develop around the gate at the west end of Leipziger Strasse, which turned south toward the hamlet of [[Schöneberg]] after leaving the city. This road, which had developed into part of a trading route running across Europe from Paris to [[St. Petersburg]] via [[Aachen]], Berlin and [[Königsberg]], became Elector Frederick William's route of choice to Potsdam, the location of his palace, in 1660. After [[Frederick II of Prussia|Frederick II]] became king in 1740, the road was significantly improved, and became known as [[Potsdamer Straße]]; the gate became ''Potsdamer Tor'' (Potsdam Gate).

Just inside the gate was a large octagonal area, created at the time of Friedrichstadt's expansion in 1732-4 and bisected by Leipziger Strasse; this was one of several parade grounds for the thousands of soldiers garrisoned in Berlin at the height of the [[Kingdom of Prussia]]. Initially known as the ''Achteck'' (Octagon), on 15 September 1814 it was renamed [[Leipziger Platz]] after the site of Prussia's final decisive defeat of [[Napoleon]] Bonaparte at the [[Battle of Leipzig]], which brought to an end the [[War of the Sixth Coalition|Wars of Liberation]] that had been going on since 1806. The gate itself was redesignated ''Leipziger Tor'' (Leipzig Gate) around the same time, but reverted to its old name a few years later.

Being outside Berlin, and therefore not subject to the same planning guidelines, Potsdamer Platz grew in a piecemeal and haphazard way, unlike Leipziger Platz, which had been planned and built all at once by [[Johann Philipp Gerlach]]. Prussian architect [[Friedrich Gilly|Friedrich David Gilly]] proposed a unified redesign of the two squares in 1797, but it was never built. In 1815, his pupil, [[Karl Friedrich Schinkel]], proposed the area as the location for a National Memorial Cathedral, to be known as the ''Residenzkirche'', but this was never built either, due to lack of funds. However, Schinkel did get to rebuild the gate in 1823–1824, replacing what was little more than a gap in the customs wall with a much grander affair consisting of two matching Doric-style stone gate-houses, like little temples, facing each other across Leipziger Strasse. The one on the north side served as the customs house and excise collection point, while its southern counterpart was a military guardhouse, set up to prevent desertions of [[Prussian Army|Prussian soldiers]], which had become a major problem. The new gate was dedicated on 23 August 1824. Schinkel's proposal to add a garden was not implemented, but in 1828 a plan by gardener and landscape architect [[Peter Joseph Lenné]] went ahead. He redesigned the Tiergarten, a large wooded park formerly the Royal Hunting Grounds, gave his name to [[Lennéstraße]], a thoroughfare forming part of the southern boundary of the park very close to Potsdamer Platz, and transformed a muddy ditch to the south into one of Berlin's busiest waterways, the [[Landwehrkanal]].

[[File:Berlin Leipziger Tor Friedrich Schinkel AE 60.jpg|thumb|Proposed design by [[Karl Friedrich Schinkel]] for Potsdamer Platz and [[Leipziger Platz]]]]

[[File:Berlin Potsdamer Tor 1820.jpg|thumb|Artist's rendering of the new Potsdam Gate after completion]]

Meanwhile, country peasantry were generally not welcome in the city, and so the gates also served to restrict access.  However, the country folk were permitted to set up trading posts of their own just outside the gates, and the Potsdam Gate especially. It was hoped that this would encourage development of all the country lanes into proper roads; in turn it was hoped that these would emulate Parisian boulevards—broad, straight and magnificent, but the main intention was to enable troops to be moved quickly. Thus Potsdamer Platz was off and running.

It was not called that until 8 July 1831, but the area outside the Potsdam Gate began to develop in the early 19th century as a district of quiet villas, for as Berlin became even more congested, many of its richer citizens moved outside the customs wall and built spacious new homes around the trading post, along the newly developing boulevards, and around the southern edge of the Tiergarten. The development was piecemeal, but in 1828 this area just to the west of Potsdamer Platz, sandwiched between the Tiergarten and the north bank of the future Landwehrkanal, received royal approval for a more purposeful metamorphosis into a residential colony of the affluent, gradually filling with palatial houses and villas. These became the homes of civil servants, officers, bankers, artists and politicians among others, and earned the area the nickname "Millionaires' Quarter" although its official designation was ''Friedrichvorstadt'' (Friedrich's Suburb), or the ''Tiergartenviertel'' (Tiergarten Quarter).

Many of the properties in the neighborhood were the work of architect [[Friedrich Hitzig|Georg Friedrich Heinrich Hitzig]] (1811–81), a pupil of Schinkel who also built the original "English Embassy" in Leipziger Platz, where the vast [[Wertheim (department store)|Wertheim]] department store would stand, although Friedrichvorstadt's focal point and most notable building was the work of another architect—and another pupil of Schinkel.  The ''[[Matthiaskirche]]'' (St. Matthew's Church), built in 1844–6, was an [[Italian Romanesque]]-style building in alternating bands of red and yellow brick, and designed by [[Friedrich August Stüler]] (1800–65). This church, one of fewer than half a dozen surviving pre-World War II buildings in the entire area, forms the centrepiece of today's ''Kulturforum'' ([[Kulturforum|Cultural Forum]]).

Meanwhile, many of the Huguenots fleeing religious persecution in France, and their descendants, had also been living around the trading post and cultivating local fields.  Noticing that traffic queues often built up at the Potsdam Gate due to delays in making the customs checks, these people had begun to offer coffee, bread, cakes and confectionery from their homes or from roadside stalls to travelers passing through, thus beginning the tradition of providing food and drink around the future Potsdamer Platz. Larger and more purpose-built establishments began to take their place, and they in turn were superseded by bigger and grander ones. The former district of quiet villas was by now anything but quiet: Potsdamer Platz had taken on an existence all its own whose sheer pace of life rivalled anything within the city.

By the mid-1860s direct taxation had made the customs wall redundant, and so in 1866–7 most of it was demolished along with all the city gates except two&nbsp;– the Brandenburg Gate and the Potsdam Gate. The removal of the customs wall allowed its former route to be turned into yet another road running through Potsdamer Platz, thus increasing still further the amount of traffic passing through. This road, both north and south of the platz, was named [[Königgrätzer Straße]] after the [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussian]] victory over Austria at the [[Battle of Königgrätz]] on 3 July 1866, in the [[Austro-Prussian War]].