Café Moskau, Cultural heritage monument on Karl-Marx-Allee, Berlin, Germany
Café Moskau is a postwar building on Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin-Mitte featuring a monumental Sputnik satellite replica above its entrance. The structure spans two levels with eleven rooms primarily used today for conferences and events accommodating up to 2,400 people.
Planned in 1959 by a seven-architect collective under Josef Kaiser and Horst Bauer, the Restaurant Moskau was built from 1961 to 1964 and opened on 18 January 1964 as one of East Berlin's Nationalitätenrestaurants run by the HO. After the HO was dissolved, the building passed to TLG Immobilien and stood empty for about ten years before reopening for events after 2000.
The mosaic 'From the Life of the Peoples of the Soviet Union' by Bert Heller, 9 by 15 metres, decorates the entrance front on Karl-Marx-Allee. The building's name comes from its DDR-era role as a Nationalitätenrestaurant serving dishes from Soviet republics, with 600 seats, a tea room, a mocha room and a concert and dance café.
The building stands at Karl-Marx-Allee 34, at the corner of Schillingstraße, opposite the Kino International; the Schillingstraße U-Bahn station is nearby. The Sputnik replica and the 9 × 15 m mosaic face the avenue. The interior is used for booked events, so visiting depends on the programme.
The rooftop Sputnik model was a gift from the Soviet ambassador and stood above the entrance corner at the opening in 1964. The building's padded tubular steel chairs disappeared unnoticed after 1990, during roughly ten years of vacancy under the Treuhandliegenschaftsgesellschaft.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 92,666 contributors worldwide.
