The Brandenburg Gate is Berlin’s most famous monument. In 1788, King Frederick William II of Prussia commissioned the Gate, which was designed by architect Carl Gotthard Langhans, to represent peace following the Thirty Years’ War. 

The Nazis used the Brandeburg Gate as a party symbol and it was heavily damaged during the War. It backgrounded Ronald Reagan’s 1987 speech when he famously challenged the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall!” After the fall of the Berlin wall, the gate became a symbol of reunification. Today, it adorns mugs, t-shirts, keychains. It’s also the logo of the of the BVG, Berlin’s public transport company, which runs the U-Bahn.

But, as 1843 Magazine notes, the logo is hideous. The perspective is inaccurate and the lines are heavy and awkward. So a couple of Brazilian-Berliners took it upon themselves to clean up the logo. They’ve printed the revamped illustration on clear stickers and passed them out to the public.

Now the BVG has promised an improved design. Hooray for vigilante designers!

More news from Berlin:

• Olson Kundig will design the Noah's Ark-themed Children's Museum for the Jewish Museum Berlin
• "Architecture is a field of repression": Daniel Libeskind on childhood memories, trauma, and architecture
• A Tale of two cities: The archipelago and the enclave