Carl Gotthard Langhans, the royal architect, built the Brandenburg Gate from 1788 to 1791 on the orders of King Frederick William II of Prussia. It is one of the first Greek Revival buildings in Germany, based on the Propylaea, the gateway to the Acropolis in Athens.
The gate is 85 feet (26 m) high and 205 feet (62.5 m) wide. Twelve fluted Doric columns, six on each side, form five passageways. Sixteen metopes on each long face show scenes from Greek mythology, and reliefs between the columns show the Labors of Hercules. On top stands Johann Gottfried Schadow's Quadriga, a chariot drawn by four horses, made of hammered copper sheets. Napoleon took it to Paris after the Battle of Jena in 1806, and it returned to Berlin in 1814.
The gate reopened on December 22, 1989, after almost three decades closed by the Berlin Wall. Badly damaged in the war, it was restored by 1957.
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