Neue Wache

This guide to the Neue Wache in Berlin traces the building from Karl Friedrich Schinkel's 1816 royal guardhouse through its shifting roles as a war memorial under successive German states, up to the open oculus in the ceiling that lets rain and snow fall through by design. At its center is the small bronze figure beneath that opening, an enlarged copy of a sculpture by Käthe Kollwitz, and the story of her son Peter, who volunteered in 1914 and was killed within weeks. Stand where the light from the oculus falls as you listen.