TYPO WALK
3 min readOn a walk with the Typostammtisch Berlin, Florian Hardwig and Fritz Grögel approached Berlin-Mitte through its lettering – on façades, signs and gravestones, with the accomplished and the clumsy given equal attention. The route led from Museum Island past Alexanderplatz into the old Klosterviertel.
It began with Karl Friedrich Schinkel's gilded inscription on the Altes Museum, whose eventful history Fritz Grögel has documented in detail. The Urania-Weltzeituhr, designed by Erich John and inaugurated in 1969, carries city names whose letterforms later became the basis of Alex Serif, released by BANK™ through T-26 in 2010 and documented on Fonts In Use. In the Klosterviertel, a city map from 1931 laid against one from 2019 made the changes to the historic street plan visible. At the Parochialkirche, 18th-century epitaphs in Fraktur called for close reading: long s, ligatures and letterforms that follow conventions no longer familiar today.
A separate stop concerned a single character, the ß on Berlin's street signs. After reunification, the West Berlin model became the standard for the entire city: a condensed sans derived from Erbar Grotesk with its own ligatures, including an ß composed of a long s and a z. As the model was never issued as one binding master font, each sign maker interpreted it slightly differently. On Waisenstraße, two enamel signs on the same post show two distinct versions of the ß.
The inconspicuous details proved just as instructive: a gate dated 1813, green glazed tiles framing a courtyard entrance, and a cast-iron maker's plate inscribed »Schulz & Holdefleiss, Berlin N.« – traces of craft and industry recorded in metal and ceramic. More lettering walks by Fritz Grögel · See the route
It began with Karl Friedrich Schinkel's gilded inscription on the Altes Museum, whose eventful history Fritz Grögel has documented in detail. The Urania-Weltzeituhr, designed by Erich John and inaugurated in 1969, carries city names whose letterforms later became the basis of Alex Serif, released by BANK™ through T-26 in 2010 and documented on Fonts In Use. In the Klosterviertel, a city map from 1931 laid against one from 2019 made the changes to the historic street plan visible. At the Parochialkirche, 18th-century epitaphs in Fraktur called for close reading: long s, ligatures and letterforms that follow conventions no longer familiar today.
A separate stop concerned a single character, the ß on Berlin's street signs. After reunification, the West Berlin model became the standard for the entire city: a condensed sans derived from Erbar Grotesk with its own ligatures, including an ß composed of a long s and a z. As the model was never issued as one binding master font, each sign maker interpreted it slightly differently. On Waisenstraße, two enamel signs on the same post show two distinct versions of the ß.
The inconspicuous details proved just as instructive: a gate dated 1813, green glazed tiles framing a courtyard entrance, and a cast-iron maker's plate inscribed »Schulz & Holdefleiss, Berlin N.« – traces of craft and industry recorded in metal and ceramic. More lettering walks by Fritz Grögel · See the route
#typography#typostammtisch#lettering#fraktur#berlin#citywalk
August 2026
