This originally formed part of the infamous Berlin Wall.
The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989.
Constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall cut off
by land West Berlin from virtually all of surrounding East Germany and East Berlin until government officials opened
it in November 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and finished in 1992.
More than 5,000 escape attempts were made trying to flee life behind the Iron Curtain. Then on November 9, 1989,
the first sledgehammers pounded into the concrete to “tear down this wall”. It took 18 months to bulldoze the 140
km (87 mile) structure.
Most of the materials were crushed and recycled into roads. However, some sections were sold, auctioned off or
donated as historically important objet d’arts.
A number of large scale installations from the Berlin wall may be seen as far away as the World Trade Centre in
Montreal, donated to the city in 1992, to Seoul, South Korea, where a three section portion of the wall stands in
Berlin Square. It was brought to Seoul in 2005 as a gift from the City of Berlin to inspire South Koreans to hope for a
similar reunification with North Korea in the future.
Closer to home a single section stands outside the Imperial War Museum, London.
German artist and environmental activist Ben
Wagin painted his powerful messages over
these sections of the Wall in 1990 after initial
visitors had chipped off the original graffiti
- creating a uniquely textured surface. The
effect is as dramatic as it is powerful. These
sections were part of the memorial to the
hundreds of people killed at the Wall trying
to escape to freedom, called the Parliament
of Trees, in the middle of Berlin opposite
the Reichstag. These parts of the original
memorial had to be removed to make room
for additional constructions. The wall is
covered with a quote by the German President
at the time, Richard von Weizsäcker, who
said: “To unite means to learn to share.” The
reverse shows graffiti ‘Berliner November 1989’
