The Fight Over Berlin's Charming Street Lights

Is world heritage at threat in Berlin? If you think of historical monuments at risk of destruction, the orderly capital of one of the world’s richest countries probably isn’t the first location that might spring to mind. This month, however, the World Monument Fund has placed a key aspect of Berlin’s historical fabric on its 2014 World Monuments Watch List, which details examples of internationally valuable but threatened sites. It’s not a palace, a park or a house that’s at risk. It’s the city’s street lamps.

Berlin has a reputation as one of Europe’s more modern capitals, but there’s actually part of the city’s infrastructure that is positively Victorian: its gas lighting. The German capital is the most heavily gas-lit major city in the world, its 43,000 lamps making up more than half the total remaining public gas lanterns still in existence. Many of these lanterns are beautiful, ranging from elaborate hydra-like candelabra dating back to the 1890s to simple, single teardrops. They also shed an unusually warm, yellowish light, a little dim compared to most big cities, but soft and atmospheric, especially when there’s fresh snow on the ground to intensify its glare.