The record
A five-metre steel bird a Scottish artist put up in December 1988 to look over the Wall into the East, still standing beside a single segment in Reinickendorf.
A steel bird nearly five metres tall stands beside a single wall element on the Wilhelmsruher Damm in Reinickendorf. It is the Berlin Burd, by the Scottish sculptor George Wyllie, commissioned by Glasgow District Council for the Glasgow–Berlin 88 exchange and put up in December 1988, eleven months before the border opened.
The height was the point. The Wall was four metres; the bird was five, so it could see over, and Wyllie set it looking east. Getting permission was not easy — Berlin's politicians were, in his word, cagey about it. School children in Glasgow and Berlin made five hundred small birds of their own to go with it.
After the Wall came down, Wyllie took a call from Berlin: "Zat you Georg? — a bird is not a stone." Ein Vogel ist kein Stein. He kept the phrase, and later used it to discourage stone-throwing protesters at IMF demonstrations.
The Berlin Wall Foundation lists the element and sculpture together in its directory of surviving traces as MAU-726. Wyllie's estate says the bird still stands at number 49. One public comment says it could not stay on the Wall and was set up in its present spot only in 2009; the district's press release about that has gone from the web, so the record gives the 1988 installation and leaves the date of the present siting open.
How did it get here?
Commissioned by Glasgow District Council for Glasgow–Berlin 88 and installed in December 1988 looking over the Wall to the east; now beside a single wall element at Wilhelmsruher Damm 49.
Sources & verification
Zat you Georg? — a bird is not a stone — George Wyllie ↗
The steel Berlin Burd, nearly five metres tall, commissioned by Glasgow District Council for Glasgow–Berlin 88 and set up in December 1988 to overlook the four-metre Wall looking east; permission was hard to get; children in Glasgow and Berlin made 500 birds; the call from Berlin after the fall of the Wall; the bird still stands by a piece of the Wall at 49 Wilhelmsruher Damm.
Source accessed 2026-09-17
MAU-726 Wall Bird Wilhelmsruh — MAUERSPUREN, Stiftung Berliner Mauer ↗
A wall element of type QT1.1 on the Wilhelmsruher Damm, where George Wyllie erected the steel sculpture Berlin-Bird in December 1988; catalogued as MAU-726.
Source accessed 2026-09-17
Last verified: Not yet verified
Our sourcing standardsNo 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