These Streets

Yesterday was a gloomy day in Berlin. The weather was windy, the clouds were gray, and the sky was constantly spitting rain. Regardless, I seized the day with Erblin and Kemal and went around Mitte, specifically Unter den Linden, which translates to "under the linden trees." The whole boulevard is lined with linden trees as it leads you to Pariser Platz and the Brandenburg Gate.

Our first destination was... wait for it... a Behnisch building! Designed by the Stuttgart office, the Akademie der Künste (Academy of the Arts) is a fantastic addition to Pariser Platz, which is surrounded by mostly embassies. The exterior wasn't too significant, but I feel like that has more to do with the neighboring buildings than anything because all the facades are flush. However, once you enter, you know you're in a Behnisch building. To the left, there's a grand staircase that invites you to walk up to the second level (look at the handrail too!) and to the right is the gift shop/book store and mirror walls that we're so fond of. As you walk past the ceiling, the space just soars. We tried to get as high as we could, but eventually we reached a sign that said "No Entrance," but you know how architecture students like to explore... but as soon as we walked past the roped area, a woman ran out of nowhere and started yelling in German. After seeing confused looks on our faces, she yelled in English. Too bad I don't have a Behnisch badge or something that I could flash and get admittance to the rest of the building. So we walked back down, and on top of the glass roof, there were the words "OFF LIMITS FOR GOOGLE." I found that amusing. We exited through the other entrance because I wanted to see what it looked like (and it was very much a Behnisch color scheme), and to our surprise, we stumbled upon Peter Eisenman's Holocaust Memorial.


We walked around and got lost in the memorial for a while. It's pretty much rows and rows of rectangular blocks extruded upwards at different elevations, and as you walk through, the ground raises or lowers and you get engulfed by these structures. It would be a great place to play tag if it weren't a Holocaust memorial. I would love to go back on a sunny day or at night just to see what it looks and feels like at those times. 

We walked back through the Behnisch building and finished exploring the rest of the space. We tried to go next door to the Frank Gehry building, but when Erblin opened the door, some angry German man came screaming at us, saying "geschlossen" which means "closed," so that didn't happen. I managed to sneak a shot of the interior through the glass doors though.

We spent the rest of our time just wandering around Pariser Platz and photographing the area.  After getting tired of the rain, we called it a day and headed to studio. More exploring tomorrow since we don't have classes! And I actually saw the sun today!