When you live in Berlin you will probably sometimes need more than a recommendation for a restaurant, party or fashion shop. Sometimes you need practical things for projects, jobs or for your house, like where to buy this or that material, where to rent this tool, how to produce this? Especially when you are new in town these things are a little harder to find than the obvious stuff. In an effort to make this blog more than just a tourist and culture guide we have started to come out with some features that go beyond gastronomy and entertainment. So far we already released guides on networking, learning German and moving to Berlin. Today we have yet another one that will come in handy every once in a while: Practical shops and services in Berlin. Here you will find hopefully a lot of places to buy materials and tools for crafts, designing, art, home improvement. We also added a couple of places for rentals and production. Enjoy our guide and feel free to add useful things that you think are missing in the comments below.
Crafts & Arts
I just have to start my list with the planet modulor shop at Aufbauhaus in Kreuzberg at Moritzplatz. It’s probably the most practical shop for creative and crafty people that you can dream of. They have everything from paint, canvases, frames, stationary, fabrics, paper and cardboard, architect materials, office supplies, and all other little things and materials that you could need for basically anything. There is also some places inside where you can laser cut acrylic, wood and other materials.
If you are just looking for artists supplies we have three stores of the European chain boesner here in Berlin in Prenzlauer Berg, Marienfelde and Charlottenburg. For more hobby-style crafts and arts there are also three shops of the chain idee Creativmarkt and lots of little neighborhood hobby or “Bastel” shops with basic materials and tools. Germans do like to get crafty…
planet modulor
Maker Spaces
What Maker Spaces do summed up in a few words is that they give you the opportunity to materialize your ideas into real-life tangible projects. Aside from a wide array of innovative, professional tools at your disposal ranging from laser cutters, to 3D printers and from cutting plotters to milling machines, most of them, like Happylab at Brunnenstraße in Gesundbrunnen, constantly offer tours and workshops to introduce you to the fascinating world of shaping your ideas into objects by teaching you how to use all those tools which make this possible. What is more, you get to exchange ideas and enrich your way of thinking through constant interaction with other potential pioneers, like you!
For an alternative in Prenzlauer Berg check out Fab Lab on Prenzlauer Allee.
photo: Happylab Berlin
Fabrics & Leather
For some project you might need fabrics and leather, not only for fashion design, but also for curtains, furniture and decoration. We have plenty of good sources in Berlin. If you like it a bit fancy we have a Marimekko Store in Mitte. The famous Finish fabric design label has bold and colorful prints and their fabrics have a great quality, but that comes at a price of course. For more regular fabrics for all purposes and in a bigger variety the three biggest fabric stores are Hüco (Moabit), Kumasch (Prenzlauer Berg and Charlottenburg) and Berger (Schöneberg). The idee shop at KaDeWe in Charlottenburg also has a big selection of more unique and special fabrics. If you are looking for a bargain you should check out the Turkish Market at Maybachufer on Tuesday or Friday. There is a really cute button store in Kreuzberg called Paul Knopf.
If you are looking for leather there is only a few places in town and its quite expensive. There is Fauck in Tiergarten and Börnecke in Kreuzberg. If you are looking for a cheaper source try the sample and left over leather sale of shoe label Trippen in Kreuzberg.
Marimekko, photo: Philip Koschel/visitBerlin / CC
Office & Furniture
If you need furniture for your new office, shop, showroom or studio we have a few places to look into. My favorite one is Minimum at Aufbauhaus in Kreuzberg, they have a lot of Scandinavian classics from vitra, hay and norman Copenhagen, but also some design pieces from Berlin. I also like the office section of Habitat which has finally arrived in Berlin at Potsdamer Platz this month. In Charlottenburg there is an entire shopping mall dedicated to furniture and interior called Stilwerk. I particularly like the pop-up store with Berlin designers they have at the moment. Also check out our new interior design guide for Berlin.
Minimum Berlin
Hardware & Home Improvement
Germans love to build things and do things at home themselves. That’s why we have more home improvement and hardware store than most other countries. Normally these places are far outside of the city, but here in Berlin we have quite a few also in central locations. We call these places “Baumarkt” and we have many chains of them. My personal favorites are Bauhaus, Obi and Hornbach because they have the best variety. Here you get all kinds of materials to build things in your house. Think wood, wallpaper, tiles, hardware, carpets, electronic parts, lamps, pipes, cables, chains, nails and screws, frames, tools and so much more. For me these places are like toyshops and I can never leave them without buying something. If you wanna see a really big and impressive one check out the new Bauhaus one in Halensee at the end of Kurfürstendamm that is also impressive to look at from outside.
One little shop I want to add here is specialized in antique style brass hardware and it’s called Antik Style. Here you find the old style door and window handles and so much more it’s amazing!
Bauhaus Baumarkt, photo: Andreas Levers / CC
Electronics
For consumer electronics we have of course the usual big suspects, mostly in big shopping malls. But of course I don’t need to send you there. For a more selected electronics shopping experience check Cyberport at Bikini Berlin. If you are looking for Apple products we do have one Apple store, but there is also Gravis, one of their biggest German licensed retailers. In case you need repairs there is also smaller places like Betterworx in Prenzlauer Berg that can fix your Mac. If you are looking for a cheaper source for electronics and also electronic parts check out Conrad in Kreuzberg, Schöneberg and Steglitz. That one is cheaper than Mediamarkt and Saturn.
Gravis
Catering & Gourmet Food
For cooks, restaurant and cafe owners and caterers we would also like to point out some places that we like. There is a pretty awesome gourmet supermarket called Frische Paradies in Prenzlauer Berg and Charlottenburg. They are not exactly cheap, but stock ingredients and gourmet food products you won’t get anywhere else. A more affordable, yet less fancy alternative is Mitte Meer in Charlottenburg and Schöneberg (they had one in Prenzlauer Berg too, but that one closed recently). If you are looking for more stuff than just food (although their food section is also quite extensive and good if you buy in big quantities) you should check out one of the big Metro markets (membership and business required). They also have a lot of useful stuff like food packaging, glasses and plates and other product you need for catering. On that note there is a new big wholesale market for gastronomy in the making that I always watch on my way to Tegel Airport. It’s called Hamberger Großmarkt and it looks like it will open soon.
Frische Paradies Prenzlauer Berg
Cars & Transportation
As you might have noticed very few young Berliners own cars. Why? Public transport is amazing and there is hardly good parking spaces to find. So when we need to drive to places that the subway or busses don’t reach we use the short time car rentals like car2go, flinkster or Drivenow. If you need a cheap rental car over the weekend check out Hässliches Entlein (they have small cars over the weekend for as little as 60 EUR, or 20 EUR per day). If you need to transport bigger objects or furniture the classic in Berlin is Robben & Wientjes. They have a couple of rentals all over town and offer cars and transporters in all different sizes for really small prices.
car2go, photo: Daimler
Equipment Rentals
For some projects you don’t want to buy, you want to rent because you need the equipment only once or its simply too expensive. We have great places in town for photographers and film makers that offer you all that you need. For photo productions people love Delight in Tiergarten here (they also have an amazing photo studio in Prenzlauer Berg), I personally use Rent One to rent lenses for special purposes. For film production equipment I use 25p cine support. Last but not least for events I like to use bluemedia for beamers, lights, stage elements, projectors, speakers, DJ equipment, etc.
Delight Rental Services
Printing
As the penultimate chapter in our practical Berlin guide I want to give you some recommendations for printing in Berlin. Of course over the internet you’ll find tons of print services, but these are the ones that are actually in Berlin where you can go into their shops to order and pick up. They are good for printing promotional materials, brochures, magazines, posters, businesscards and more. The one I use the most is FlyerAlarm in Mitte. I even printed the gigantic 10x3m artwork for our Berlinferno event there which came out great. Another option in Wedding is laser-line who have good options for short-term printing. For Prenzlauer Berg check out Pinguin Druck. For more Copyshop-style printing we recommend Centralstation in Prenzlauer Berg, they also do plotted adhesive typography and shapes (for windows and plain surfaces).
laser-line, photo: Daniel Isbrecht
So, this is our quite long list of practical shops and services in Berlin. Can you think of any more or are you looking for things you couldn’t find in our list? Let us know in the comments below!
