The avenue, which is 89 meters wide and nearly 2 kilometers long, is lined with monumental eight-storey buildings designed in the so-called wedding-cake style, the socialist classicism of the Soviet Union. At each end are dual towers at Frankfurter Tor and Strausberger Platz designed by Hermann Henselmann

The boulevard was named Stalinallee between 1949 and 1961 (previously Große Frankfurter Straße), and was a flagship building project of East Germany's reconstruction programme after World War II

On June 17, 1953 the Stalinallee became the focus of a worker uprising which endangered the young state's existence. Builders and construction workers demonstrated against the communist government, leading to a national uprising. Later the street was used for East Germany's annual May 1st parade.

The boulevard later found favour with postmodernists, with Philip Johnson describing it as "true city planning on the grand scale", while Aldo Rossi called it "Europe's last great street."