Germany Guide
North Rhine-Westphalia
Königsallee
A little of the Hofgarten's leafy charm continues south from the park along Königsallee, the lavish 82-metre-wide boulevard laid out along the course of the city's old fortifications at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The eastern side is probably Germany's prime spot for flaneurs or fashion victims, its 812m length an A to Z of international designer names from Armani to Ermenegildo Zegna, not forgetting Germany's own Jil Sander. A block east on Grünstrasse, the extrovert Stilwerk mall is filled with upmarket interiors stores. Separated from all this by two avenues of trees and an ornamental moat, Königsallee's western side fringes the banking district and is more sober in style, though even here there is some glitz. The copper-roofed Jugendstil Kaufhof at the north end is the city's most imposing department store. It was designed for the Tietz chain in 1907–09 by Joseph Maria Olbrich, a leading light of the Viennese Secession and of Darmstadt's Mathildenhöhe Künstlerkolonie.
West of Königsallee, the broad, straight avenues of the banking quarter have an almost North American feel, an impression heightened by two Weimar-era skyscrapers – the 1924 Wilhelm-Marx-Haus on Heinrich-Heine-Allee and the 1922 Haus der Stummkonzern at Breite Strasse 69, both of which blend Expressionist and brick Gothic elements to good effect.