Berlin has been recently designated “the graffiti Mecca of the urban art world.” Not bad for a place where street art began as a minor movement in the late 1970s, confined to the rough patches of the Western sector.

Today, graffiti and numerous forms of urban art – guerilla knitting and urban gardening just to name a few - continue to reclaim the city as a public space of unbridled creativity and free thinking.

Our tour will take you through the landmarks of this burgeoning street scene brimming with the works of international celebrities (Shepard Fairey, Blu, Victor Ash) and of artists who have made Berlin their home.

The tour will start with the large format works characterizing Kreuzberg 36 and move along an uninterrupted free gallery toward the River Spree under the tracks of the U1 metro line.

A new perspective opens up at the Oberbaumbrücke, where the frenetic pictures on rooftops and buildings give way to the nearly institutionalized space of the East Side Gallery. After becoming familiar with the nuts and bolts of graffiti jargon we will be ready to tackle Mitte and end our tour at Haus Schwarzenberg for a colorful grand finale.