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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Sometimes when we follow our everyday life in our little neighborhoods traveling between a maximum of three districts from work, to the girlfriend, and back home, we completely forget how big Berlin actually is and how much there is to discover beyond our usual comfort zone. And as we need to soak up as much daylight as possible in the darker and colder season of the year we have all the more reason to go out and explore the city beyond the S-Bahn ring.
Thanks to the multiple comfortable car sharing services we have here in Berlin the ride to our next adventure is literally just around the corner. For our brand new tour we have teamed up with one of those services: DriveNow which has one of the biggest fleets of cars – you will find their BMW and MINI all over the city. You can either use the car for a short practical ride from A to B and pay by minute, or you can book the car for a package of 3, 6, 9 or 24 hours to make little trips to further places.
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by Frank | Dahlem, Museums, Wannsee, Zehlendorf
photos: Sascha Kohlmann / CC
There are these times – especially when adulthood seems to be overwhelming and I am supposed to pretend to be an adult among others who are trying to fake it until they make it -, when I reminisce the old days, when I was a child unaware of the grown-up world and its tedious complexity; when my deepest frustration would revolve around my aversion to the lunch my dad had prepared for me that day and my biggest joy would be Santa’s advent with his presents. I am inclined to believe that it is a universal tendency to look back at the past with nostalgia and think how beautiful it all was back then. This kind of nostalgia is the feeling that takes over when I see Sascha Kohlmann’s pictures of old gumball machines. I automatically have to think of my mom bringing me home after kindergarten and me stopping her on the way to ask her if I could have a gumball, which back then meant the world to me. What memories do gumball machines bring up to you?
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by Nikos | Photos
A city has many sounds and of course so does Berlin. Especially busy areas like the Oranienstraße in Kreuzberg is full of strange noises. Rico Loop went down the street with his loop machine catching some of the sounds in the street, creating his own noises with bike bells and other objects he finds on his way, beat boxing and singing on top of the loops. The result is a crazy, funky song that is super catchy and perfectly captures the improvised nature of the multicultural district. Check out the video shot by Arthur Moore that shows him in the process.
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by Frank | Music, Videos
photo: Tobias Nielsen / CC
It’s still one of Berlin’s most mysterious abandoned places: The old CIA spy station Teufelsberg. Located on a hill that was formed by the rubble of World War II it is one of the most popular destinations for urban explorer and fans of graffiti. The spectacular building has a ghostly appearance and is covered in murals, tags and graffiti. If you haven’t been yourself, maybe this cool short video will finally convince you to go!
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by Frank | Videos
Berlin-based photo artist Jan Herdlicka who we previously featured with his mysterious and dark photo series and who was also one of the artists of our WE ARE BERLIN photo exhibition just came out with a stunning new project! We already discovered his new series RE: KUNSTRUKT yesterday on Finding Berlin and now we are happy to be able to present it to you here as well.
His five beautiful collages show iconic architectural elements of Berlin reshaped and compiled together like abstract tree sculptures. They show the contrast of the human-made urban concrete structures that we surround ourselves with in our city lives and natural forms that might be completely forgotten in future generations. In a way this is a vision of how humanity might imagine “nature” in a time where they don’t have a chance to actually see it for real anymore. The retro-futuristic aesthetic of the pieces makes it even more haunting. These would make such brilliant additions to the current Radikal Modern exhibition about Berlin’s architectural boom in the 50-90s at Berlinische Galerie. Enjoy the series RE: KONSTRUKT after the jump.
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by Frank | Art
On Friday we will be travelling to London to visit online fashion retailer ASOS and take part in the Urban Tour that introduces their brand new Fall/Winter 2011 menswear selection. Check out the exciting new ASOS Urban Tour website that explores the style of the cities Berlin, Paris, London, New York and LA. On the website you can see an amazing urban dance video with enhanced interactive shopping features. Really nifty! Stay tuned to follow us on the tour…
by Frank | Fashion
