I'm a high school teacher developing a cool project for an elective that I teach centering on the Cold War. Your answers will be of great assistance to me!
What are some buildings/structures/institutions that typified life in East or West Berlin? What are some buildings/structures/institutions which held the most significant historical meaning due to the events unfolding there. I've already considered adding, the wall (of course), checkpoint charlie, Tempelhof, Kaufhaus des Westens, and schools.
My students and I are going to be working on an ambitious project to create a model of Cold War era Berlin including many features that make it clear how life was quite different for those living in the East as opposed to the West. Thanks so much for providing me some good ideas.
You could try the Fernsehturm, which was (and continues to be) the tallest structure in Berlin, and was built by the DDR as a symbol of modernity and their power. I've also heard that it was made so tall so that it would be able to block TV/Radio signals from the West from reaching the East, but I can't confirm that for sure.
There was also the Palast der Republik which was the seat of the DDR parliament, but also served as a 'People's Palace' and housed theatres/galleries and restaurants.
I guess you could also talk about the Plattenbau estates in outer suburbs like Marzahn, which were hastily built by the Communist government in the 60s to solve the housing crisis, but were poorly maintained and had little in the way of infrastructure/amenities/shops, and now lie half-empty in many cases.
Matt Frei did a documentary series about Berlin a while ago, I think one of the episodes actually talked about architecture and I think this is the first part of that episode if you want to check it out.