New York Times, why do you tempt me with two of my favorite aspects of Berlin, cycling and architecture, and finally clear up the question of the name of my favorite building along the Spree? I know I have a "Take me to California" shirt, but really I'd rather be enjoying all that this article reminds me of!
Is it not bizarre that CNN.com is using some pedestrianized sort of 1337?
Showing posts with label germany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label germany. Show all posts
25 September 2007
05 August 2007
contrasts
If yesterday was the day of symphonic organ concerts followed by Russian discos, today was another day of the uniquely Berliner brand of stark contrasts that occur so organically in this old new city. Last summer, I missed getting the last ticket to Berliner Unterwelten's tour of the stunning Flakturm and settled for the Dark Worlds tour of bomb shelters instead. This time, I was behind schedule again but managed to get tickets for the 13:00 tour. To pass the time, I wandered into a lovely rose garden (thereby fulfilling my annual rose garden summer dosage) and climbed the hill beside it to find myself on the roof of the Flakturm itself, intensely fortified as if enemies might come charging up the hillside at any second, although suicide jumpers seem the likely problem. The fascinating view of outer Berlin merged not long after I arrived with the sound of swinging bells from several directions ringing in the noon hour. Campanological life in Europe is good.
Smoked salmon is cheap here. The Deutsche Bahn convenience store carried Lachsbrötchen for 1,90 EUR. In fact, sandwiches are super cheap and relatively healthy here, a most welcome relief from the generic paste-filled sandwiches that pervade the Low Countries. Peach drinks are also popular, although a stalking wasp forced me to gulp mine down faster than I'd intended. For the few moments I had the drink to myself, however, perched on a bench on the wide concrete expanse of Gesundbrunnen soaking in the sun and idly watching the people idly drinking their German beers, I reveled in the delight of being utterly free to do whatever I wanted with my time. Without my tools for work and with extensive public transportation, I'm bound neither by a schedule nor by my mobility. My Tageskarte allows me total spontaneity. It's heaven on earth.
The tour got off to a slow start, and our tour guide spoke German at such breakneck speed that I reluctantly tuned him out for most of the time, choosing to read and reread the posters on the walls rather than deal with the linguistic mayhem caused by this auditory hailstorm. But just as I was tempted to leave, he led us into the massive corridor of concrete pillars and ceilings that had nearly collapsed under their own weight and the weight of time and neglect, and I knew my time had been well spent. BU's not-advertised policy of forbidding photographs, however, seems utterly contrary to urbex ideals.
Lacking the time I'd hoped for to race home and change into true summer clothes (the depths of the Flakturm were chilly), I hurried instead to the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and joined a crowd of thirty or so intent listeners for Jeffrey Bossin's electroacoustic carillon recital, which ended with a truly glorious klang. To have heard two electroacoustic carillon concerts within two months is really not bad. Afterwards I met the staff from Studio TU Berlin and two composers on DAAD grants, rushed home to change into the summer clothes I'd been waiting since June to don, and met Jeffrey for Mövenpick ice cream.
This left me too little time to rush through the Deutsche Guggenheim, so I opted to hop on the S-Bahn and hop off wherever I fancied, which proved to be the Hauptbanhof. After wandering its glassy corridors and grabbing a veggie wrap, I went in search of the artificial beach I'd seen from the rails and instead found sand sculptures, which I skipped, and further down, concrete things mounted in the ground on the Spree on which many young things were sitting, drinking beer, and enjoying the sunset. I sat down, snapped up my wrap, and snapped away with my camera, hoping to catch the surreal moment. Under the spell of twilight, it seemed as if the ultra-modern, clean glass monolith of the DB was the only building in a world whose borders ended at the other shore of the Spree. Beyond that shore was simply endless sunset, the only inhabitants us young'uns sipping and eating and watching nonchalantly in our sunglasses as the orange orb of the sun disappeared beneath the edge of nothingness.
And then the sun set and we suddenly felt colder, so we went on, and I went on and found the source of the distant drumming I'd been enjoying. I gave the man some spare change and took a picture of him at his suggestion, only to realize that he was asking me to use his camera, which I tried unsuccessfully to do as the camera did not cooperate. Giving the cold shoulder to obnoxious tourists and easily discouraged Germans on bicycles, I sauntered eastward along the Reichstagufer and found myself on the surreal Band des Bundes, with its icy skyward winding Paul-Löbe-Haus (footed by a surreal shubbery) and Kahnian Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders Haus, one of the absolute most beautiful modern buildings I've seen in ages. A massive flock of birds kept sweeping dizzily over me from one side of the Spree to the other, and the beautiful colors of twilight made this incredible feat of architecture a drug for the rest of the evening. It must have taken me a good half hour or more just to walk the three blocks that constitute the Band des Bundes.
P.S. for Head 2: Same giant spiders proliferating here as in Hamburg. Need bag of peanuts and good aim on the double! Also, although Friedrichstraße seemed sketchy on the side we wandered into last year for Starbucks, the other side is the theater district and bursting at the seams with classy cafes (and someone doing a fire show). The mosquitoes are everywhere but do not find me appetizing at all, again a welcome relief from the Belgian mosquitoes who could never, ever, ever get enough of me.
Smoked salmon is cheap here. The Deutsche Bahn convenience store carried Lachsbrötchen for 1,90 EUR. In fact, sandwiches are super cheap and relatively healthy here, a most welcome relief from the generic paste-filled sandwiches that pervade the Low Countries. Peach drinks are also popular, although a stalking wasp forced me to gulp mine down faster than I'd intended. For the few moments I had the drink to myself, however, perched on a bench on the wide concrete expanse of Gesundbrunnen soaking in the sun and idly watching the people idly drinking their German beers, I reveled in the delight of being utterly free to do whatever I wanted with my time. Without my tools for work and with extensive public transportation, I'm bound neither by a schedule nor by my mobility. My Tageskarte allows me total spontaneity. It's heaven on earth.
The tour got off to a slow start, and our tour guide spoke German at such breakneck speed that I reluctantly tuned him out for most of the time, choosing to read and reread the posters on the walls rather than deal with the linguistic mayhem caused by this auditory hailstorm. But just as I was tempted to leave, he led us into the massive corridor of concrete pillars and ceilings that had nearly collapsed under their own weight and the weight of time and neglect, and I knew my time had been well spent. BU's not-advertised policy of forbidding photographs, however, seems utterly contrary to urbex ideals.
Lacking the time I'd hoped for to race home and change into true summer clothes (the depths of the Flakturm were chilly), I hurried instead to the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and joined a crowd of thirty or so intent listeners for Jeffrey Bossin's electroacoustic carillon recital, which ended with a truly glorious klang. To have heard two electroacoustic carillon concerts within two months is really not bad. Afterwards I met the staff from Studio TU Berlin and two composers on DAAD grants, rushed home to change into the summer clothes I'd been waiting since June to don, and met Jeffrey for Mövenpick ice cream.
This left me too little time to rush through the Deutsche Guggenheim, so I opted to hop on the S-Bahn and hop off wherever I fancied, which proved to be the Hauptbanhof. After wandering its glassy corridors and grabbing a veggie wrap, I went in search of the artificial beach I'd seen from the rails and instead found sand sculptures, which I skipped, and further down, concrete things mounted in the ground on the Spree on which many young things were sitting, drinking beer, and enjoying the sunset. I sat down, snapped up my wrap, and snapped away with my camera, hoping to catch the surreal moment. Under the spell of twilight, it seemed as if the ultra-modern, clean glass monolith of the DB was the only building in a world whose borders ended at the other shore of the Spree. Beyond that shore was simply endless sunset, the only inhabitants us young'uns sipping and eating and watching nonchalantly in our sunglasses as the orange orb of the sun disappeared beneath the edge of nothingness.
And then the sun set and we suddenly felt colder, so we went on, and I went on and found the source of the distant drumming I'd been enjoying. I gave the man some spare change and took a picture of him at his suggestion, only to realize that he was asking me to use his camera, which I tried unsuccessfully to do as the camera did not cooperate. Giving the cold shoulder to obnoxious tourists and easily discouraged Germans on bicycles, I sauntered eastward along the Reichstagufer and found myself on the surreal Band des Bundes, with its icy skyward winding Paul-Löbe-Haus (footed by a surreal shubbery) and Kahnian Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders Haus, one of the absolute most beautiful modern buildings I've seen in ages. A massive flock of birds kept sweeping dizzily over me from one side of the Spree to the other, and the beautiful colors of twilight made this incredible feat of architecture a drug for the rest of the evening. It must have taken me a good half hour or more just to walk the three blocks that constitute the Band des Bundes.
P.S. for Head 2: Same giant spiders proliferating here as in Hamburg. Need bag of peanuts and good aim on the double! Also, although Friedrichstraße seemed sketchy on the side we wandered into last year for Starbucks, the other side is the theater district and bursting at the seams with classy cafes (and someone doing a fire show). The mosquitoes are everywhere but do not find me appetizing at all, again a welcome relief from the Belgian mosquitoes who could never, ever, ever get enough of me.
03 August 2007
Berlin Day 1
I have the hallway of the JETpak hostel to myself. At 2:00 on a Friday/Saturday night, all the young'uns (and even the older ones who feel out of place) are partaking of Berlin's famed nightlife. I get all the bandwidth, but more importantly, I get the privacy I've been missing otherwise. It's been a long day of culture and cuisine, and my hopes lie tomorrow with the things open during business hours.
The morning began with a two-hour breakfast--more specifically, a two-hour hunt for breakfast that finally led me to the organic grocery just three blocks away. But in the meantime I discovered Lindt's chili chocolate at another grocery store with a strangely cheap looking exterior and yet classy interior complete with olive bar. I also got to know the neighborhood better on foot, so no time was lost.
What followed was a stop at the Sony Center and the alarming discovery that my camera batteries had died. I gave up people-watching over a frozen mocha as most of the people were tourists (excepting perhaps a middle-aged punk mom) and instead shamelessly pored over my lonely planet guide to Germany, knowing I was clueless in good company.
The Musikinstrumenten-Museum, which I'd promised myself I would visit when I passed by en route to the Bauhaus Museum last summer, was a stone's throw away. The structure and interior decoration were delightfully neo-Bauhaus, a strange setting for musical instruments from the middle ages to the present. Each instrument seemed to double my excitement; some were strange takes on things I knew, some were enormously elaborate, some were simply ridiculous. I enjoyed the collection doubly because I could now appreciate the countless historical keyboards and also make a point of examining the horns. Saturday's Wurlitzer performer entertained us with a rehearsal fraught with a persistent cipher, providing a strange soundtrack for my journey past 18th-century clavichords (if only I could have played one!) and lutes lined with scraps of medieval parchment. I never imagined I'd learn so much about the organ from this museum, but a 16th/17th-century collection from a church in Naumburg of everything from zinks to 8-foot schalmeis revealed the mysteries behind these eponymous pedal reed stops based on instruments totally alien to us today. Even the Wurlitzer was fun to examine, with all of the pipes, vibraphones, cymbals, etc. visible and clearly labeled. A wild section on computer music made me laugh and want to run out and buy a vintage synth for my own home, while a mock piano-making studio taught me about the manufacture of spring strings and other mysteries. I made off with eleven postcards and many free brochures and posters a good three hours later, having forced myself to rush so I could catch lunch by 15:00.
Catch lunch I did -- in the area around Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, a neighborhood of which I would happily become a denizen, had I reason to move to Berlin. Just blocks away from the courtyards of the Hackescher Markt, this trendy run-down neighborhood united Maura's requisite "a bit of sketch" with delicious cheap eastern eateries, cheap haircuts in chic salons, hip hop and eastern clothiers, and boutiques carrying stunning futuristic pieces to break any fashion-hungry girl's heart or budget. Monsieur Vuong himself reseated me from the bar as soon as a table became available, and my request for "some vegetarian noodle" quickly brought me an asymmetrical bowl of the best Asian noodles I've eaten in ages. I was blowing my nose with at least three others in the restaurant by the end, feeling thankful for my bowl of artichoke tea. The best meal (paling in 't groen excepted) I've had so far since arriving in Europe -- cost me 8 EUR.
After poking my head into the various shops, I hopped into a salon and enjoyed a shampoo and cut (blowdry and apply salon products of your choice yourself - fun!) for 11 EUR in an industrial-turned-Beaux-Arts concrete cavern. At this point, with my new favorite shirt (a black cotton sleeveless turtleneck that, with my gorgeous 'A' necklace, makes me look like a million dollars), billowing grey Urban Outfitters skirt, and b/w-striped arm warmers, I looked like an authentic Berliner. I love the fashion here. It's too broad to pinpoint (although prison stripes for gals and aviators for guys are definitely in), too wacky to find in one store, and thankfully bears no resemblance to the frill-fraught neutrals of Belgian female fashion that, to my dismay, have hardly changed since last year. Berliners aren't afraid to make fashion statements, and overwhelmingly the most favored one is the statement made in all black.
Thoroughly taken by this neighborhood, which despite its relative peace and quiet is minutes from the bustling elegant courtyards and stilettoed girls of the Hackescher Markt and nearly in the shadow of the Fersehturm, I found my impatience growing for something new and also non-intellectual to relieve all the effort I'd spent in the MiM. So into the gleaming hallways of KaDeWe I sped, half affronted at the fact that it was a department store and half in heaven helping myself to samples from the near-complete lines of Aveda, Clarin's, L'Occitane, and Crabtree that I love and can't afford. Feeling better-versed in Breitlings after poring over two tall cases of them while trying not to look suspicious, I ascended through women's clothes and electronics, all of which I scorned, to the food court for a bite to eat.
A few steps in and I already felt faint. By the time I reached the tea department (the size of an entire store and with all teas in teacups for the sniffing), I was nearly in a swoon. So many fine foods, so many smells and sights! But where was dinner? I was preparing myself mentally to find nourishment elsewhere as closing time neared, when I reached the end of the aisle in one of the fish departments (spotless and magically lacking in any fish odor whatsoever) and found 4 EUR sandwiches. Not just any sandwiches--mine was filled with a generous amount of smoked salmon, not the oily thinly sliced kind but the thick chewy kind. I savored it and took notes on the experience, still unable to believe my luck.
The bathroom on this floor was tremendous, and it just happened to have one of the best views of Berlin in the area, framed by long windows looking out on the curiously undulating façade of the building across the way. The setting sun made for a doubly brilliant scene that evaded my battery-starved camera. And I managed to walk out of the store with the least dignified item one could ever imagine purchasing at a high-end department store -- a 4-EUR box of Ballastoffreich (fiber-enriched) Kellogg's cereal. This store is serious in its claim to sell everything. My only regret was that the Eiswein they carried was quite fine: 30 EUR. In other words, 30 EUR too much, especially as I have nobody to savor it with.
I must admit ZARA pulled me in for the next hour, as KaDeWe sent customers pouring out of its doors towards other Ku'damm-area stores at 20:00. One romantic white dress with a wide black band really caught my fancy, but it was a special item and thus sported an impossible price tag of about 130 EUR. To my surprise, I really have found no substitute for the J. Crew summer dress at Zara or Mango. American fashion does follow its own route, but the rarity of this cut of dress really is a surprise to me. Anyway, it's time to think of winter clothes. And I've found the perfect knee-length woolen coat to keep out the Rochester cold this coming winter. Rochester, aren't you excited to be my catwalk in September?
And so I'm back at JETpak, planning tomorrow out and wondering when the rest of my roommates will arrive. Gute Nacht.
The morning began with a two-hour breakfast--more specifically, a two-hour hunt for breakfast that finally led me to the organic grocery just three blocks away. But in the meantime I discovered Lindt's chili chocolate at another grocery store with a strangely cheap looking exterior and yet classy interior complete with olive bar. I also got to know the neighborhood better on foot, so no time was lost.
What followed was a stop at the Sony Center and the alarming discovery that my camera batteries had died. I gave up people-watching over a frozen mocha as most of the people were tourists (excepting perhaps a middle-aged punk mom) and instead shamelessly pored over my lonely planet guide to Germany, knowing I was clueless in good company.
The Musikinstrumenten-Museum, which I'd promised myself I would visit when I passed by en route to the Bauhaus Museum last summer, was a stone's throw away. The structure and interior decoration were delightfully neo-Bauhaus, a strange setting for musical instruments from the middle ages to the present. Each instrument seemed to double my excitement; some were strange takes on things I knew, some were enormously elaborate, some were simply ridiculous. I enjoyed the collection doubly because I could now appreciate the countless historical keyboards and also make a point of examining the horns. Saturday's Wurlitzer performer entertained us with a rehearsal fraught with a persistent cipher, providing a strange soundtrack for my journey past 18th-century clavichords (if only I could have played one!) and lutes lined with scraps of medieval parchment. I never imagined I'd learn so much about the organ from this museum, but a 16th/17th-century collection from a church in Naumburg of everything from zinks to 8-foot schalmeis revealed the mysteries behind these eponymous pedal reed stops based on instruments totally alien to us today. Even the Wurlitzer was fun to examine, with all of the pipes, vibraphones, cymbals, etc. visible and clearly labeled. A wild section on computer music made me laugh and want to run out and buy a vintage synth for my own home, while a mock piano-making studio taught me about the manufacture of spring strings and other mysteries. I made off with eleven postcards and many free brochures and posters a good three hours later, having forced myself to rush so I could catch lunch by 15:00.
Catch lunch I did -- in the area around Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, a neighborhood of which I would happily become a denizen, had I reason to move to Berlin. Just blocks away from the courtyards of the Hackescher Markt, this trendy run-down neighborhood united Maura's requisite "a bit of sketch" with delicious cheap eastern eateries, cheap haircuts in chic salons, hip hop and eastern clothiers, and boutiques carrying stunning futuristic pieces to break any fashion-hungry girl's heart or budget. Monsieur Vuong himself reseated me from the bar as soon as a table became available, and my request for "some vegetarian noodle" quickly brought me an asymmetrical bowl of the best Asian noodles I've eaten in ages. I was blowing my nose with at least three others in the restaurant by the end, feeling thankful for my bowl of artichoke tea. The best meal (paling in 't groen excepted) I've had so far since arriving in Europe -- cost me 8 EUR.
After poking my head into the various shops, I hopped into a salon and enjoyed a shampoo and cut (blowdry and apply salon products of your choice yourself - fun!) for 11 EUR in an industrial-turned-Beaux-Arts concrete cavern. At this point, with my new favorite shirt (a black cotton sleeveless turtleneck that, with my gorgeous 'A' necklace, makes me look like a million dollars), billowing grey Urban Outfitters skirt, and b/w-striped arm warmers, I looked like an authentic Berliner. I love the fashion here. It's too broad to pinpoint (although prison stripes for gals and aviators for guys are definitely in), too wacky to find in one store, and thankfully bears no resemblance to the frill-fraught neutrals of Belgian female fashion that, to my dismay, have hardly changed since last year. Berliners aren't afraid to make fashion statements, and overwhelmingly the most favored one is the statement made in all black.
Thoroughly taken by this neighborhood, which despite its relative peace and quiet is minutes from the bustling elegant courtyards and stilettoed girls of the Hackescher Markt and nearly in the shadow of the Fersehturm, I found my impatience growing for something new and also non-intellectual to relieve all the effort I'd spent in the MiM. So into the gleaming hallways of KaDeWe I sped, half affronted at the fact that it was a department store and half in heaven helping myself to samples from the near-complete lines of Aveda, Clarin's, L'Occitane, and Crabtree that I love and can't afford. Feeling better-versed in Breitlings after poring over two tall cases of them while trying not to look suspicious, I ascended through women's clothes and electronics, all of which I scorned, to the food court for a bite to eat.
A few steps in and I already felt faint. By the time I reached the tea department (the size of an entire store and with all teas in teacups for the sniffing), I was nearly in a swoon. So many fine foods, so many smells and sights! But where was dinner? I was preparing myself mentally to find nourishment elsewhere as closing time neared, when I reached the end of the aisle in one of the fish departments (spotless and magically lacking in any fish odor whatsoever) and found 4 EUR sandwiches. Not just any sandwiches--mine was filled with a generous amount of smoked salmon, not the oily thinly sliced kind but the thick chewy kind. I savored it and took notes on the experience, still unable to believe my luck.
The bathroom on this floor was tremendous, and it just happened to have one of the best views of Berlin in the area, framed by long windows looking out on the curiously undulating façade of the building across the way. The setting sun made for a doubly brilliant scene that evaded my battery-starved camera. And I managed to walk out of the store with the least dignified item one could ever imagine purchasing at a high-end department store -- a 4-EUR box of Ballastoffreich (fiber-enriched) Kellogg's cereal. This store is serious in its claim to sell everything. My only regret was that the Eiswein they carried was quite fine: 30 EUR. In other words, 30 EUR too much, especially as I have nobody to savor it with.
I must admit ZARA pulled me in for the next hour, as KaDeWe sent customers pouring out of its doors towards other Ku'damm-area stores at 20:00. One romantic white dress with a wide black band really caught my fancy, but it was a special item and thus sported an impossible price tag of about 130 EUR. To my surprise, I really have found no substitute for the J. Crew summer dress at Zara or Mango. American fashion does follow its own route, but the rarity of this cut of dress really is a surprise to me. Anyway, it's time to think of winter clothes. And I've found the perfect knee-length woolen coat to keep out the Rochester cold this coming winter. Rochester, aren't you excited to be my catwalk in September?
And so I'm back at JETpak, planning tomorrow out and wondering when the rest of my roommates will arrive. Gute Nacht.
06 June 2007
the best buildings you'll ever hear
"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." So Elvis Costello or some other fellow quipped. But what if architecture is one of the keys to the future of music?
I finally understand the subject of one of my favorite photos from Germany. Herzog & De Meuron (one of my favorite architectural firms) is turning this building on the perimeter of the industrial harbour of Hamburg into a rather monolithic concert hall. A recent NY Times article describes the exciting marriages of innovative architecture and symphonies taking place today. The dreamlike ballpark interior of this hall will certainly draw me back to Hamburg to attend a performance. I just hope all these new halls incorporate really good organs. At least the organ still seems like a requisite piece of the pie, even if few composers actually use it in their concert hall pieces.
I finally understand the subject of one of my favorite photos from Germany. Herzog & De Meuron (one of my favorite architectural firms) is turning this building on the perimeter of the industrial harbour of Hamburg into a rather monolithic concert hall. A recent NY Times article describes the exciting marriages of innovative architecture and symphonies taking place today. The dreamlike ballpark interior of this hall will certainly draw me back to Hamburg to attend a performance. I just hope all these new halls incorporate really good organs. At least the organ still seems like a requisite piece of the pie, even if few composers actually use it in their concert hall pieces.
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