Berlin is a city of reinvention at every level—individuals come here to reinvent themselves and the city itself is always reinventing itself. With a constant influx of people coming to Berlin every year to discover its rich history, plentiful parties or simply political safety, the future of the city could go in many directions. Will housing become even more competitive? Will the city find ways to become more environmentally friendly? Will the coronavirus force the city to stagnate or will creativity continue to flourish? Right now, Berlin seems to be on the brink of another phase of reinvention.
100 Years Berlin – Unfinished Metropolis, a free exhibition at the Kronprinzenpalais that is still open until February 2021 but currently closed due to the lockdown in November, seeks to answer some of these questions by examining the last century. Unfinished Metropolis celebrates the centennial of the conglomeration of Berlin and asks the visitor to examine the past to look forward. The exhibition reviews urban planning successes and failures of the last 100 years in Berlin and also features winning entries from the International Urban Design Ideas Competition for Berlin-Brandenburg 2070. These entries provide an idea of what the city may look like in 50 years. Here’s what those winning entries propose.
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by Adri | Stories
Germans are famous for their grumpiness – and sometimes it feels like the new expats are adapting it quicker than they would admit themselves. While gentrification is a real issue, we cannot stay entirely focused on that, because that leaves us with no time to support new initiatives with the potential to have a really positive impact on our city. Today, we are presenting 5 such ideas from the minds of our local visionaries – the future may not be as dim as you’ve thought!
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by Michalina | Stories
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Can you imagine the city of Berlin without office buildings? Everybody working remotely, only having their weekly or monthly meetings at a cafe or somewhere else? This would bring the city lots of more spaces for living and more spaces for culture and creativity. Not so bad in the end, huh?
Thinking about the future, not as an obstacle but rather a variety of opportunities is the task of the upcoming speculative laboratory “The Workhouse” by design brand USM in collaboration with UNstudio.
For a period of six weeks, the innovative furniture company will create a post-work utopia in which work and life merge together. For the opening weekend on June 2nd, there will be a small conference starting the laboratory. If you want to go, it’s your lucky day since we are raffling off 2×2 tickets. Find out how below.
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by Claudio | Art, Design
photo: Elaine Casap
Old habits die hard. Not that this is an excuse for avoiding change, but… they just do. When you, like most of us, grew up in this affluent society of ours, you are used to groceries always being available to you. That yoghurt in the back of the fridge, that you forgot when you went away for a few days… oh well, sheepishly throw it away, you can get a new one today. That take away food, that you didn’t end up eating in the end – bye, there’s the bin. Again, you bought 10 eggs and ended up eating 3? If you are recognizing yourself right now, this article is for you!
There is that indifference, in all of us. But if global food waste was a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases next to China and the USA. Unshaped fruit and vegetables, overproduced goods, portions at restaurants that are too large or expired groceries that are still fine to consume – all of it ends up in the bin, even though it is still perfectly fine to eat. Food waste is on of our biggest problems today and the fight against it should become habitual. This is why we are giving a shoutout to these awesome Berlin-based food projects that are taking a stand against it.
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by Franziska | Cafés, Food, Products, Restaurants, Shops
When I was little, I thought that all things in life needed to follow a given structure. Like the mail that goes through the postal system, or like my big sister following her daily schedule for school. Similar to Pacman we move within a certain frame from A to B, as quickly and efficiently as trains on railroad tracks, with those few stops along the way, where we can either get off and change trains or just carry on till the end. It’s safe, I learned. It’s comfortable. It seemed like this is simply how things in life function as well as how we grow and evolve. We go to kindergarten, preschool, high school, university and start working to build a career, which asks for commitment and endurance. So, people in their 20s like me, who have been following these sort of systems all their lives, are slowly starting to lose stamina; Wait, what was this dream again I used to follow…?
The options, what to make of yourself and your life, are endless. The stories of people who have dared to go off the grid, are all over the internet. Are we still having this one dream, or is the dream now to squeeze as many achievements under our belt as possible? Is there still that one position you still dream of working in or has it become many or even none?
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by Franziska | People, Stories
Last week a brand new festival launched in Berlin that took over the beautiful Kaufhaus Jandorf at Weinbergspark. But the C-HR Festival is not just any kind of festival, it’s a festival for the future: The themes are sustainability, creativity, design, fashion and innovation. All of these are quite broad topics, but when you read the program of speakers and workshop hosts you will understand how it’s all connected.
We live in a world that is oversaturated by innovations, creativity and design. But we realized that many of the things that humans have developed in the past couple of decades brought a lot of negative side-effects with them. Effects that we were blind to for way too long, environmentally, economically but also socially. The C-HR Festival now wants to shed some light on some of the problems and solutions we have today and need to come up with in the future. There will be talks and speeches about pollution of the ocean, the psychology of creativity, the possible effects of veganism and so much more.
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by Frank | Events
photo: Jeisson Martin
We are at times a little hard on Berlin. It’s messy, it’s heartbreaking, it’s lost, it’s dirty… But with all the things that are going wrong here, one thing is for sure: It’s always going forward. And this gives us hope.
It’s sad, that some places we love are vanishing, that people we care for are leaving, that districts we live in change for the worse. But when you take a look at Berlin from a distance you can see that it always moves on. And we will, too.
We might not have the power to change everything that we think is bad, but we will fight for it, regardless, and remain hopeful. When things get difficult, the people of Berlin will stay strong together and pull through, hand in hand, may it be to rebuild the city, tear down walls or help those in need.
This city has proven so many times through history that it can overcome pretty much everything from war to economical crisis, and from oppression to separation and I’m sure it’ll handle present and future challenges such as globalization, migration, crime, and commercialization just fine. Berlin will keep on changing and with its past as a testament we can be hopeful that it will always remain a unique place in the world.
by Frank | Stories
Surely you’ve seen the neon installation by Maurizio Nannucci on the facade of the Altes Museum which states: “All Art has been contemporary”. Even though this is now pulled down, it probably inspired me a little bit. When I looked at the following designs from the collection of Astrid Andersen from London, I thought: “All fashion will be vintage.“ Can you think why? I have a certain feeling about it. If it wasn’t already I would like to copyright this sentence. Or opensource it? More pictures from this strange but great collection which I found at the very nice blog Ignant after the jump.
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by Claudio | Art, Fashion
