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Tuesday, August 09, 2005 Tor Here's a good photo of the Brandenburger Gate around the May 8 commemorations of World War II. It's an optical illusion -- a photo from just after the war was spread out as a canvas in Pariser Platz, and from the right angle you could juxtapose the rebuilt gate and the ruin. Picture credit goes to Rachel, when she was here with my old friend Mike. UPDATE: Anyone know why the quadriga on top of the gate faces across Pariser Platz, towards the east? If it was like that in the days of the old Berlin wall -- the one that circled the city in the 17th and 18th centuries, when this was a real entrance -- the horses and chariot would have faced into town instead of outwards, to impress visitors. Isn't that weird? posted by Michael Scott Moore | 9:40 AM
Comments:
I had always heard that it originally faced west and that the GDR reoriented it once they fenced in the Tor. Of course, I can't find any proof of that anywhere; noone (online) mentions how it was placed originally. I sort of thought it would make sense facing towards the Siegesaeule, as a sort of Wilhelmine axis, but I don't know.
Aside from being more interesting to look at (no horses' behinds!), by facing eastward Victory (the figure) is returning to the GDR, rather than going away from it into the West. But if that's how it was originally placed in the 19th C then it's all just a rereading.
Sorry, the toll-wall was up in the 18th and 19th centuries. And maybe the Quadriga got reversed after Napoleon took it down and had it shipped to Paris. That little prank alway struck me as kind of collegiate.
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