Alte Bibliothek

The curved façade you're looking at right now earned this building one of Berlin's most affectionate nicknames: "The Kommode," or the chest of drawers. Locals thought the swooping baroque curves looked less like a royal library and more like a piece of bedroom furniture. Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, probably would not have been amused.

Frederick commissioned this building in the 1770s as a serious seat of knowledge and culture. Architect Georg Christian Unger completed it in 1780, and when the doors opened in 1784, it held 150,000 volumes. Above the entrance, the Latin inscription "Nutrimentum spiritus" says it all: "Food for the soul." By the 19th century, the collection had grown to 1.2 million books, which made the building feel very full, very quickly. A new state library had to be built in 1905 to take over.

Then came the war. World War II left the Alte Bibliothek severely damaged and gutted by fire. In the 1960s, architect Werner Kötteritzsch led a careful reconstruction that preserved the baroque exterior but gave the interior a completely modern design. Today the building serves Humboldt University and still buzzes with students.

So the old chest of drawers is still doing its job, just with slightly different contents than Frederick had in mind.