The Glorious Return of our Opera Picnic at Staatsoper für Alle

The Glorious Return of our Opera Picnic at Staatsoper für Alle

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We can’t believe it’s been already three years since we did our last official opera picnic for the big Staatsoper für Alle event. During the pandemic, the popular opera screening took place in socially distanced shapes that didn’t allow our picnic to happen, but this year the format finally went back to its original form so we were able to do it again like we used to.

And it felt really great to be back on Bebelplatz among all the opera lovers enjoying the show with our signature lavish picnic that made all the surrounding visitors jealous. And since the date coincided with the World Day of Picnics it was an even more perfect opportunity to make it extra special, including golden blankets, crystal glasses, chilled sparkling wine, etagéres full of fruit, and the finest snacks for our guests. 

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Portraits of a Street: 100 Inhabitants of Eisenacher Straße

Portraits of a Street: 100 Inhabitants of Eisenacher Straße

We’ve had so many wonderful portrait series about Berliners here on iHeartBerlin in our last 15 years: The naked Berliners, creative Berliners in their homes, Berliners of the U8, Berliners through their windows during quarantine, couples of Berlin… And there are just a few that came to mind.

Today we want to introduce you to a brand new portrait series titled “Eisenacher Hundert“, and this time the concept is giving us the double whammy. Not only are all the people portrayed in this series inhabitants of the same street, they also represent all different ages between 1 and 100. So this might be the most intergenerational series we’ve featured so far.

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Fantastic Playground Berlin Opening Recap

Fantastic Playground Berlin Opening Recap

As some of you already know we are right in the middle of our new group exhibition Fantastic Playground Berlin that you can still visit until Saturday at the Marcell von Berlin Flagship Store on Friedrichstraße 172. We have been planning this show for a long time now and we still can’t believe that it finally materialized, and it looks so much more amazing than we ever could have wished for.

 

This exhibition is really special to us because for the first time we had a theme that allowed us to create something like a retrospective of our work for iHeartBerlin for the past 15 years. Berlin is a playground of ideas – this has always been an important theme for us as we featured all these wonderful and inspiring projects from different creative scenes that make up Berlin. It’s so diverse and fun and colorful. To us, it’s the essence of Berlin and why this city is so special. It feels like everyone can find their space on this wild playground.

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Fantastic Playground Berlin – iHeartBerlin’s New Exhibition

Fantastic Playground Berlin – iHeartBerlin’s New Exhibition

illustration: Laura Breiling. 

Today, we are proud to announce our next big group exhibition “Fantastic Playground Berlin” which will celebrate the unique diversity of Berlin’s creative scene. It’s been a couple of years now since our last big exhibition Uncensored Berlin so we thought it was about time to do a new one. The last two years during the pandemic with its various lockdowns and restrictions have not been easy for the art and culture scene – nor have they been easy for us. This new show is our effort to reclaim spaces and draw the attention back to the creative people that we care about so much.

For decades Berlin has been the secret creative hub of Europe. From music to art. From theater to architecture. From techno to science. Berlin became the place where cultures clash – but in a good way. 

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Beautiful Flower Bouquets in Berlin: The Bergamotte Delivery Service

Beautiful Flower Bouquets in Berlin: The Bergamotte Delivery Service

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We can hardly believe it, but it looks like spring is finally here. The mood goes immediately up for us, as well as our need for fresh new colors and inspiration in our own four walls. And what could be better than a beautiful, colorful bouquet of flowers on the table? On the streets and in the stores we see colorful tulips and other great spring flowers everywhere. Our eyes can hardly get enough of them. But who has the most beautiful bouquet in Berlin?

Today we would like to recommend a hot contender for this title: Bergamotte is an online flower delivery service that originally comes from France and has made a name for itself in recent years especially for its great pop up sales with houseplants, which we ourselves have visited often and gladly to green up our apartment. But the Pop Up Sales are only part of their activity. For those who want to meet their plant and flower needs in between Pop Up Sales, there is a rich selection of them on their website at any given time. Some time ago, we also introduced you to Bergamotte for shipping houseplants with Berlin delivery, you are welcome to read that again here. But today our contribution should be all about their great flower bouquets.

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Berlin From Unseen Perspectives

Berlin From Unseen Perspectives

photos: KabGrafie.com

 

In our 15 years of iHeartBerlin, we have seen quite a bit in terms of Berlin photos and of course taken a lot ourselves. Especially the great Instagram photography era has given us many wonderful impressions of our city, which has shown us many unknown and surprising sides of Berlin. So understandably, it’s a bit difficult to impress us with Berlin photos nowadays. Or so we thought.

A few weeks ago we received an email from Mark Rautenberg, who drew our attention to his Berlin photographs. We get such submissions every now and then and are of course always grateful and happy when we can share the work of creative Berliners on our blog, especially because it allows us to give new or lesser-known creatives a platform.

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Soulhouse: Order the Perfect Massage to Your Home

Soulhouse: Order the Perfect Massage to Your Home

photos: Soulhouse. 

When the founders of Berlin-based massage therapy platform Soulhouse reached out to me a while ago to ask me if I would be interested in trying out their new massage service, they probably had no idea that this would be such a dream opportunity for me. I’m somewhat a massage fanatic and to get offered to try out such a premium service is like Christmas and my birthday is coming together on the same day.

I really love to get massages and I will jump at any opportunity to get one. Whenever I book into a hotel that offers massages, the first thing I’ll do is book one at the earliest time possible. When I discover a new massage studio in my neighborhood, I’ll be the first one to try it out. And pretty much all of my previous and current partners have come under pressure to give me massages. So, clearly, I’m an expert now in the field of receiving massages and I won’t shy away from sharing my qualified opinion 😉

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A Brave New World: Esther Perbandt Dominates the Runway at Berlin Fashion Week

A Brave New World: Esther Perbandt Dominates the Runway at Berlin Fashion Week

photos: Sebastian Reuter/Getty Images for Nowadays. 

When I met Esther Perbandt back in 2010, she was one of the already quite established Berlin Designers that decided to join Designer Scouts – the runway show event at Berlin Fashion Week for avantgarde and upcoming designers that we hosted as a sister project to iHeartBerlin. I was pretty much at the start of my involvement in the creative scene of Berlin and I remember I was especially in awe of those who had already made a name for themselves in the city. I admit that I was a little nervous at first. But Esther was so approachable and kind, there was this instant familiarity that she builds with you that made her so many friends over the years.

Esther was always a bit of a wild child in Berlin. She rarely joined the official runway of Berlin Fashion Week, rather making her own shows and events, in the streets of Berlin, or in one of Berlin’s biggest theaters, the Volksbühne, and one time even as a concert where she performed herself. She never really fit in with the other designers, because her designs were always beyond any current trends or established aesthetics, nor were they particularly compatible with pop culture. Esther has always designed for the type of individuals that want to remain individualistic. She was always bending gender norms and mixing up male and female silhouettes and details – long before genderless fashion became a trend. She always stayed faithful to the avant-garde and artistic side of fashion.

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Kreuzberg Just Got a New Night Club: Marktlokal Klub

Kreuzberg Just Got a New Night Club: Marktlokal Klub

Even though it seems there is very little good news these days, we have something great to announce that will really bring some joy to some of you. Kreuzberg just got a brand new nightclub: Marktlokal Klub! The district that is so famous for its nightlife and bar scene but oddly has so few actual clubs is finally getting a new one. Located at Markthalle 9 in the basement of the Marktlokal restaurant the new nightlife spot follows suit with Berlin’s tradition of having clubs in basements.

I instantly had to think back to places such as ZMF in Mitte (the original location from the makers of the iconic Griesmühle) or the famous Fuchs & Elster at Weserstraße (the original club from the Klunkerkranich team). In Kreuzberg, for instance, there were the two cute Kellerclubs Kleine Reise at Spreewaldplatz and St. Georg next to Ritter Butzke, both of which served as earlier locations for the Pornceptual party. In addition to that, there were countless places all over the city, that didn’t even have proper names, or at least I don’t remember them, as they were often lowkey hidden underneath restaurants or bars. I really like these smaller, intimate clubs, because they often have the best crowd and are never shy to surprise you with the most fun vibes.

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Berliners Support People From Ukraine – And How You Can Help

Berliners Support People From Ukraine – And How You Can Help

Berlin protests against Ukraine War, by Lewin Bormann, CC BY-SA. 

While probably many of us are still struggling with the effects of the ongoing pandemic, the world has been thrown another shocker of a curveball just a week ago: A violent war that is closer in front of our own doorstep than many of us ever expected to witness. The people from Ukraine had to deal with the aggression of the unpleasant neighboring autocrat for such a long time now that we in the West of Europe have already pushed this ongoing conflict into our subconscious. But now it can hardly be ignored and is a brutal wake-up call for the rest of Europe about how fickle the world we believe to live in actually is.

The response from the people of the other European countries has been overwhelmingly positive towards the people of Ukraine. It is touching to see how people have not only massively expressed solidarity and sympathy in countless freedom and peace marches across the continent (also from within Russia), but also how many organized help and support in terms of transport, supply, and accommodation for refugees from Ukraine. It might be a biased impression, but I can only hope the determination and efficiency of the PEOPLE, will also inspire more CORPORATIONS and GOVERNMENTS to follow suit.

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