Prenzlauer Berg Water Tower

Built in 1877 by Henry Gill as a brick rotunda in the Historicist style, this water tower in Prenzlauer Berg is Berlin's oldest surviving water tower, supplying the city's rapidly growing northern districts until 1914. Its darker history is less visible: in spring 1933, SA paramilitaries converted the tower's basement into one of Berlin's earliest improvised detention sites, where Communists and political opponents were tortured — predating the formal concentration camp system. Protected as a listed monument since the 1980s, the upper floors have since been converted into private apartments while the exterior remains intact. The tower looms over the Gründerzeit roofline around Kollwitzplatz, permanently in view from the square's surrounding cafés and weekly market, a constant reminder of a layered and unresolved past.

An 1877 industrial tower, now apartments, with a small park and cafés at its base — symbol of the Kollwitzkiez.