Who designed the Brandenburg Gate?

Who designed the Brandenburg Gate? Carl Gotthard Langhans designed it. The Prussian royal architect created Berlin’s present gate between 1788 and 1791, on the orders of King Frederick William II. It replaced an earlier city gate and marked the road leading toward Brandenburg an der Havel.

Langhans drew heavily on classical Greek architecture, especially the Propylaea, the monumental gateway to the Acropolis in Athens. The structure has 12 fluted Doric columns arranged in five passageways, making it a landmark of early Greek Revival architecture in Germany.

A common mix-up concerns the Quadriga, the four-horse chariot above the gate. That bronze sculpture was created by Johann Gottfried Schadow, not Langhans. The gate was originally called the Peace Gate and opened in 1791, before every part of the surrounding complex was finished. It later became a powerful symbol of Berlin, German division and reunification.