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Berlin - in amicable rhythm
Berlin, a collection of well-to-do inner suburbs, separated only by wide roadways, average wealth and varied ages, circling the duality of forest park and gridded old town. Around and about this pairing are dotted the exhibits; the gate, the parliament, the train station, the occasional statue, the loose cluster of library, gallery, philharmonie, this and that theatre. No evident downtown to focus the distribution, a city once roughly rent in two, now more defined by the gap still visible in the fabric than by a coherent centre. The effervescent and deeply knowledgeable Claus Këpplinger leads us on a personal walking tour of the Mitte neighbourhood above the Spree; the benefits of bombsite recovery, the opportunities that launched a collection of young architects, that created new/old courtyard activities, that, despite the subsequent gentrification, still support emerging artists and mature designers in their ambition to spend time well. The impression is of unfettered renewal throughout the 19th and 20thC, the rise of the working classes, the fading of the bourgeoisie, the rise and fall of those who briefly haunted this city, and now the mid-thirties-family-start-ups who populate the loose-fit bars and up-tight coffee shops that animate the results. Ducking underground, we hear the tales of the tunnel diggers who sought to undermine the wall and the authorities that devised it. Another dose of knowledgeable enthusiasm from Athena Kerins of Berliner Unterwelten, holding our attention in the dank emotion-filled cellars between which a few brave men tunnelled families to unity and freedom. |
We spend most time eating well, for that is what Berlin’s weekend streets are for, we talk well with friends and family over good breakfasts and long lunches taken off tables of bleached wood and fine linen, we spend warm evenings on long communal benches with heavy glassed beers and roughly hewn potatoes, we immerse ourselves in the measured Berlin rhythm, unhurried, without angst, and with seemingly no greater purpose than to amicably converse.
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June 2026
We rise early and wander through the Interbau, Neimeyer excelling while Gropius lets the side down, a good omen for our August journey.
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