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Artist Thierry Noir recalls the gloom of living near the Berlin Wall in the 1980s

(SOUNDBITE) (German) BERLIN WALL ARTIST, THIERRY NOIR, SAYING (on HIS EARLY DAYS IN WEST-BERLIN IN 1982): "After two years living right on the Wall I realized I was slowly going crazy because there was nothing going on except for the border guards who came and went. That was it."

Noir says he was the first artist to have painted murals on the Wall

(SOUNDBITE) (French) BERLIN WALL ARTIST, THIERRY NOIR, SAYING (on PAINTING WALL): "People on the street accused me of painting nice colors onto the Wall to turn it into a tourist attraction. I told them that's impossible because even if you apply tons of paint onto the Wall it will never be beautiful.”

Parts of the structure that divided the Communist East

from the capitalist West still stands in public squares and parks

The East Side Gallery is a section of the Wall that other artists painted in 1990

Noir wants the national monument to serve as a warning

(SOUNDBITE) (French) BERLIN WALL ARTIST, THIERRY NOIR, SAYING (on WALL'S SYMBOLIC IMPORTANCE): "The East Side Gallery, this 1.3 kilometer (0.8 mi.) long Wall is important because every day, new walls are being built across the world. This morning I heard on the radio that a new concrete wall is going up between Iran and Turkey and at the same time one made from barbed wire between Lithuania and Belarus. So it's important to say: beware, a wall is a wall."