The record
The „Kennedy piece“ — a segment carrying a portrait of John F. Kennedy — inaugurated as a permanent exhibit on the Commission's esplanade on 9 November 2015.
The segment on the esplanade of the Berlaymont, the Commission's headquarters, is the one the Commission calls the Kennedy piece, after the portrait of the former American president painted on it. The Commission's Daily News of 6 November 2015 announced its inauguration as a permanent exhibit for Monday 9 November, by the Vice-President Kristalina Georgieva, Commissioner Günther Oettinger and Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, to mark both the fall of the Wall and twenty-five years of German reunification — „a symbol of an enlarged and united Europe“. Where it had been before, and who gave it, the announcement does not say. The Federal Foundation's entry for the Parliament's glass cubes does: it was one of the elements shown on the Place du Luxembourg for the twentieth anniversary in 2009, and the Commission bought it after the exhibition.
This record was mis-described until October 2026. The Federal Foundation lists it as the Commission's piece and pins it at the Berlaymont, but the page had been written from a photograph of the Parliament's segment half a kilometre away, dated it to November 2014 and placed it „near the European Parliament“. That photograph and its date now sit on the Parliament's own record.
How did it get here?
Inaugurated on the Berlaymont esplanade on 9 November 2015, by the Commission's own announcement; its earlier history and its donor are not stated there.
Sources
Listed by the Federal Foundation as #99 and by the Berlin Wall Archive as #55.
Daily News 06 / 11 / 2015 — European Commission ↗
The Commission's announcement that Vice-President Kristalina Georgieva, Commissioner Günther Oettinger and Wolfgang Schäuble would inaugurate the permanent exhibit of the „Kennedy piece“ of the Berlin Wall, named after the former US President whose portrait features on it, on the Berlaymont esplanade on Monday 9 November 2015, commemorating the fall of the Wall and the 25th anniversary of German reunification.
Institutional sourceSource accessed 2026-09-17
Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide, site entry (European Parliament) ↗
The so-called Kennedy segment on the Berlaymont esplanade since 2015 came from the exhibition on the Place du Luxembourg for the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Wall in November 2009 and was bought by the European Commission.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17
Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide ↗
The source lists this place as a Berlin Wall location. Coordinates, where supplied, are source-reported and may represent a general area. This is not independent verification of authenticity, current presence, or public access.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17 · Source record 99
Berlin Wall Archive ↗
The source lists this place as a Berlin Wall location. Coordinates, where supplied, are source-reported and may represent a general area. This is not independent verification of authenticity, current presence, or public access.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17 · Source record 55
Source-reported segments: 1. This is not a separately verified count.
No photograph of this one has been published. If you have taken one, or know when it arrived or who gave it, we would like to hear. Contribute to this record