The Festival of Lights amazes me once more with how it manages to mobilize such a huge amount of Berliners to come out of the house at night to explore the city. If you walk along any of the trails of the festival you will encounter so many other people walking around discovering the many light art projections all over the city it feels like the night becomes day – and a busy one at that.
Until October 20th, 2019, every night from 19-23h you will be able to discover countless projections – many also animated with elaborate mappings that embrace the architecture and details – at various buildings in the city such as the TV tower, the Humboldt Forum, the Berliner Dom, several buildings around Bebelplatz, the Brandenburger Gate, the high rises at Potsdamer Platz, etc.
This year’s highlight was for sure the show at Brandenburger Gate about the 30th anniversary of the Fall of the Wall. Also, the newly opened James-Simon-Gallery at Museumsisland has a particularly stunning projection that beautifully reflects in the water. Now enjoy some impressions of this year’s Festival of Lights.
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by Frank | Events
photo: Camilla Bundgaard.
Perhaps one of the main thoughts when thinking about Berlin, at least for young people that is, are its popular nightclubs, music venues, events, clubs and techno parties. In fact, Berlin has been gaining a reputation of this wild and sleepless city where the party never ends. However, Berlin is much more than just an endless rave – not to mention that it was the capital of Nazi Germany and it was also infamously divided during the Cold War – and its historical landmarks are a crucial part of what makes Berlin such an interesting city. So, although we usually try not to write about mainstream tourist sights, through the big urban icons listed in this piece you will get to understand a little bit of the history behind them.
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by Guest Author | Mitte, Museums, Stories
Usually some time in October the Festival of Lights is taking place in Berlin transforming some of Berlin’s most iconic buildings with the magic of illumination and projections. The festival has come a long way over the years including more and more buildings and bringing more international visual artists to town. Even though the light spectacle is a little bit outside the array of things that we would feature here on the blog normally I can’t help but be impressed as well by some of the projections that you get to see (and not so much by others). To see one giant panda spaceman projected onto the Berliner Dom is simply powerful and fun to watch. It reminds me of all the huge murals that are popping up over the city. I like to see this kind of larger-than-life artworks and I wish there was more of it. After the jump some of my favorite light works from the festival.
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by Frank | Photos
photo: Bianca Vola / CC
It must have been a billion eyes by now that have seen Berlin. Every day, millions of people experience the city in a completely different way. The uniqueness in commonality is distinguished, a city like Berlin holds up millions of different heads and hearts that pretty much want the same thing from life in a different form. They all come together in the capital, and flow like a stream up into the night, down in the morning.
For the many visitors coming to Berlin, the city must paint a completely different picture than for the locals. And also the visitor, each and every one them, is taking to the city what he previously experienced, merging it with the city and everyone in it.
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by Yasmin | Videos
photo: Bundesarchiv / Sturm, Horst / CC
When you think about all those metropolises of the world and what each of them uses as their main trademark (New York the Statue of Liberty, Paris the Eiffel Tower, Sydney its iconic Opera House, London the Big Ben, to name only a few examples) it seems almost odd that Berlin would have something as ordinary as a TV tower as their most prominent sight. Every major city has one of those so it seems kind of like an uninspired choice. So how come both Berliners and visitors love this particular TV tower so much that they raise it above more distinctive buildings like the Brandenburger Gate or the Dom? Is it the unique spheric shape of the platform? Its reflective, faceted surface? Its central position within the city? The fact that Berlin is built so low that it stands out so much an can be seen from almost every major street? There are probably more facts that make the TV Tower of Berlin unique compared to those of other cities. But maybe the answer is much simpler…
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by Frank | Photos, Stories
Berlin’s beauty is in the details. Yes, despite being a very popular city, it is not exactly known for, let’s say, the typical understanding of beauty. People like this city for more subtle reasons. But we think it’s also a matter of perspective. When you take a few steps back and look at it from a distance – more specifically from above – you see the city in a whole new way. Things that you normally only realize when you spend more time here become very obvious: How green the city is, the massive parks that function as green lungs of the city. How low the city was built, almost devoid of sky scrapers that mostly give cities with skylines a very generic look. From the distance you will see the more iconic constructions of the city and how much they stand-out, details that every other big city would simply swallow in a jungle of concrete.
We should look at Berlin from a bird’s eye view way more often and appreciate this different kind of beauty! To give you an overview of where you can get this perspective, we selected our favorite high viewpoints for you. A little shout-out to some of our Instagrammers from our #berlin exhibition who made a big portion of the photos after the jump.
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by Frank | Places
photo: Sascha Kohlmann
A few weeks ago I was spontaneously invited to be part of a video shoot by Huawei for their new #humantouch campaign. The video is all about sending people some positive messages, touch their hearts and give them a smile. It’s a very minimalist concept, yet it’s emotionally loaded.
Seeing the finished video now got me thinking. I like the spirit of it, taking one moment of our busy lives and write something sweet or funny to a stranger to give them a piece of happiness. We need this, especially in the cold and dark season we are in right now, especially here in Berlin were everyone is grumpy and complains. We need a bit of light-heartedness and optimism here right now. So I wondered about what could give the Berliners a smile, even if it’s just a small one, or maybe even a laugh?
After the jump I prepared some positive messages for Berlin. Let them brighten your day a bit 😉
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by Frank | Stories
On the 3rd of October Germany will be celebrating the anniversary of its re-unification. Wait, didn’t we do that last year with the balloons and all? No, that was the anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall which happened about one year before the actual re-unification of Germany. So as you can imagine this is a pretty special day for us here, especially for those who were born in the time when the country was still separated.
As in previous years the “Tag der Deutschen Einheit” will be celebrated with a big street festival at the Brandenburger Gate that is free for everyone to join.
Since the anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall we have been publishing a lot of features about Berlin’s pre- and post-wall history here on the blog. This has been a very educative process for us as we learned so many things about the city that we live in that we didn’t know before. For the anniversary of the re-unification of Germany we want to give you another history lesson by collecting 25 highlights of the united Germany. We picked both big and small happenings, personal and general events that were important to us. Join us on a trip down memory lane after the jump. For more of those moments come to Brandenburger Tor on October the 3rd!
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by Frank | Stories
illustrations: Daniel Ramirez Perez
Berlin’s cityscape isn’t as flashy as some other metropoles boasting a single iconic landmark like Lady Liberty for New York City, the Eiffel Tower for Paris or the Twin Tower for Kuala Lumpur. Instead, Berlin rather gets you with its edgy, yet historic, character that is present and clearly visible everywhere in the city. From the graffitied streets of Kreuzberg to the tall Fernsehturm that you can see from pretty much wherever you are – I’m sure you will agree that this indeed is a very diverse city. It’s difficult to sum up Berlin in words, that’s why we’re glad to have illustrator Daniel Ramirez Perez capture our charming and wonderfully weird Berlin in his colorful architectural illustrations. Have a look for yourself after the jump. Read on…
by Yoori | Art
