Best Days

So much has happened in the past couple of days! Unfortunately it's hard for me to update my blog or Facebook photo albums from my apartment. Speaking of which, I've been so caught up in talking about architecture that I completely forgot to talk about living in Berlin itself! Bear with me as I give you a quick rundown. We have internet in studio but not in the apartments, so a bunch of us bought these internet USB sticks and pay for the use of a SIM card (think cellphones) but the limit per month is 5GB, so rather than using up all of the data by uploading a million pictures, I wait until I get to studio to do that.
Shopping for food has been an experience. It's difficult to find a lot of things, but it's also because I don't know where to look. Eggs and some cheese aren't refrigerated which was a total shock for me. Grocery stores also don't give free bags; you have to buy them. Beer here is ridiculously cheap. Half a liter of beer is as cheap as 0.65€ ($0.91) and can be as "expensive" as 1.80€ which means that I have been drinking quite a few beers throughout the week... But I doubt I will get a beer belly because I've been walking around so much! Berlin is completely walkable, but their public transportation is a fantastic alternative. They have the U-Bahn (underground subway), S-Bahn (above ground), trains, and buses. It is the best public transportation I have ever experienced; the stations tell you when the next train is arriving, they're super clean, easy to figure out, and they run pretty much 24/7.
Dogs are everywhere here, probably more than I saw in LA. The best part is that they're unleashed. They're so well behaved that they just walk on the sidewalks with pedestrians.
Berlin is proactive about recycling, and it is awesome. A lot of places have separate cans for garbage, paper, plastic, and glass. Also, if you recycle your plastic and glass bottles, you get a lot of money back. One plastic bottle got me 0.25€.
Stores close fairly early here and some aren't even open on Sundays. It's so different because in America, stores try to stay open as late as they can to get more customers.
Letters and pronunciations are very interesting here. In Germany, they pronounce every letter and the emphasis is almost always on the first syllable. It also took me a few days to realize that "ß" is equivalent to writing "ss."
That's all the observations I can remember right now. On to my explorations!


Thursday was a half day so after my German language class, I went over to the Jewish Museum by Daniel Libeskind. I was fortunate enough to experience his Contemporary Jewish Museum when I was in San Fran, so I was able to compare the two. When I was reading his book Breaking Ground, Daniel actually talked a lot about fighting to get the Jewish Museum built in Berlin, and after being able to see and experience it in person, I am much more impressed with his work. From the outside, you can't really understand the form of the museum, but in an aerial view, it almost looks like a lightning bolt (there's actually an explanation for the form but I can't remember it right now). Admission was only 2.50€ with my student ID. The museum starts off by going down to the lower level where there are three axes. The first is the Axis of the Holocaust which leads to the Holocaust Tower, a 24m tower that is only lit by natural light. When I was there, it was about sunset, so the tower was almost pitch black and you could hear every little sound reverberate around you but you couldn't see a thing. Very scary feeling but definitely serves its purpose.
The second axis is the Axis of Exile that leads to the Garden of Exile, an exterior "garden" comprised of 49 concrete squares extruded at different angles as the floor plane shifts (very similar to Peter Eisenman's Holocaust Memorial). As you walk around, the varying angles start to make you dizzy and disoriented, just as Daniel intended.
The last axis is the Axis of Continuity, which the other two axes branch off of. It's pretty much just a hallway lined with Berlin history that leads to the staircase up to the permanent exhibitions.

The ground floor (which is referred to as first floor in America... it gets confusing) is where the Memory Void is. Currently the installation Shalekhet by Menashe Kadishman is in the void. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of steel faces just laid out on the ground. When I first entered, I was the only one there, so I just photographed the installation. The next thing I knew, a girl was walking across. I didn't know that was allowed, so then I started to walk across. It's a very strange feeling to be walking on all these unknown faces that represent Holocaust victims. With every footstep, you hear the clanking of steel reverberate in the void. I was actually uncomfortable.
Level 1 and 2 were the permanent exhibits. Lots of interesting facts, history, stories, etc. I was very glad that I got to experience the museum. Here's another quote from Breaking Ground:


"There's a magic to a great building. Maybe it has to do with the way light falls on it; maybe it has to do with the acoustics, the sound of footsteps in its hallways. Some buildings take a long time to get to know, but still they make you want to make the effort."

 After the museum, I walked over to the Tempodrom designed by gmp. It's an event venue, and I was hoping it would be open when I went, but sadly it was closed. It was still interesting to look at from the exterior.

On my way back to the U-Bahn, I came across the Museum of Technology, so I walked over and took a few pictures. It was aesthetically pleasing with its glass, steel, and blue lights. There's also a spiral staircase that is enclosed by glass blocks.


Friday was our field trip to Dessau to visit two buildings. The first was the Bauhaus, the birthplace of modern architecture, designed by Walter Gropius! We were given a tour by one of the guides, and she proceeded to show us spaces and explain the ideas behind the designs. For some reason, after hearing about the Bauhaus year after year, I was expecting so much more from the school. Don't get me wrong; I love the Bauhaus and what it represented and did for architecture, but I wanted it to blow me away. I do admit that it's amazing that it looks like it could have been built a few years ago, even though it was built in the late 1910s. 

Our second stop for the day was Umweltbundesamt (UBA), the Federal Environmental Agency, designed by Sauerbruch Hutton. This building was amazing. Fantastic interior atrium, super environmentally friendly, beautiful use of wood, and a nice use of color. I loved it.

Saturday was a gorgeous and very cold day. I decided to explore the Tiergarten, but I started off at Checkpoint Charlie. Checkpoint Charlie was the crossing point along the Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin. Today it's just a tourist attraction, fully equipped with a guy dressed in uniform. 

Around the corner I could spy a pink/red building which I recognized as the GSW building, also designed by Sauerbruch Hutton, so I had to walk over and check it out. It was actually an extension to one of the old office towers. It was an interesting design, but it felt very disconnected. It was like volumes were just places on top of/next to each other.

Across the street from the GSW complex was a building that I do not know but thought was interesting. When I find out the name/architect, I'll update this post... But it was two intersecting volumes with different materials.

Next stop: Staatsbibliothek by Hans Scharoun. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to get into the library stacks without a card or the supervision of a guide, so I have to return at some point. The library itself is directly across from Scharoun's Philharmonie (where I will be attending a concert tomorrow night!) and Sharoun used similar materials for both buildings, creating a nice connection. 

And because I was walking by Mie's gallery, I had to photograph it on a sunny day. 

I walked along the river, passing a handful of nice architecture, until I reached the Shell-Haus by Emil Fahrenkamp. This was very much an early modern work of architecture. The corners are all curved (and there are a lot of them) and they create this wave of ins and outs along one of the street-sides. 

I walked towards the Tiergarten and arrived at my next stop, the Nordische Botschaften (Nordic Embassies) by Alfred Berger and Tiina Parkkinen. A very surprising building to see in person. At first, I thought the "green" panels were glass but they I believe they were actually copper. On the other side there is a great wood facade and a courtyard area (unfortunately it was closed)

 

 

I proceeded towards the Tiergarten and checked out the Siegessäule (a Victory column) monument in the center of the garden. On top is the goddess of Victory, who is also on top of the Brandenburg Gate.

I walked around the Tiergarten as I waited for sunset to go to the top of the Siegessäule. I headed over to the Schloss Bellevue, which was/is the palace where the president of Berlin resided. The place is massive and exactly what you would expect for a president. Even the grass was green! I tried looking for the Akademie der Kunst (not the one by Behnisch) but I got lost in the woods, and I was freezing in the cold, so I gave up and headed back to the Siegessäule. Unfortunately, I learned that it was closed! I was so so sad because the sunset would have been amazing from that point.

I walked along Strasse des 17 Juni and stopped by the Soviet War Memorial as I made my way towards the Brandenburg Gate and Pariser Platz. I took a potty break at the Behnisch building and warmed up a bit (I was outdoors the entire day). Since the sky was finally blue, I had to do another panoramic of the plaza (and without a person in a chicken suit, although she was there again).

After that, I walked over to the Reichstag to watch the sun set. Like the Siegessäule, the dome is currently closed for visits. Seems like everything here in Berlin is closed for some reason. So I hung around the area and photographed everything, including the Paul-Lobe-Haus and the Bundeskanzleramt (office of the federal chancellor). All the buildings in the area are wonderful works of architecture. I particularly liked the Kongresshalle. It was a nice form and I loved the concrete structure. There was something for the Berlinale going on there--probably a screening or something--so I didn't go in.

Finally, I headed back to the Brandenburg Gate to get a night time shot, and I'm very glad I did. It's beautiful when it's lit up by lights with the blue night sky behind it. I made my way to the nearest U-Bahn stop to defrost and some one point I ended up in Hauptbahnhof station, designed by Alfred Lent, Bertold Scholz, and Gottlieb Henri Lapierre. The photograph I took was very underexposed (I was carrying two unopened beers) so I played around with it in Photoshop a bit. I rarely Photoshop my pictures unless they're panoramics.

Yesterday I took it easy and watched two movies that were in the Berlinale (the international film festival here in Berlin). Sadly, I woke up early at 8:30am so I could get tickets with Erblin, but looking back, I probably still would have gotten tickets if I went to buy them later in the day. Better safe than sorry though.

The first film I watched was We Were Here which is a documentary about the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco during the 80s. It was a powerful, touching, sad film. I highly recommend it. After the screening, the director David Weissman, his editor (I think his name was Bill?) and Ed, one of the guys interviewed, came up and did a Q&A session. I also got the chance to meet Ed and talk to him briefly. Such a sweet guy.
I went back to studio briefly to pick up my stuff, but on the way back, I stopped by Potsdamer Platz to pick up a Berlinale bag. I was excited, and it was only 15€!
The second movie I saw was Anistia (Amnesty). It was an Albanian film (Erblin convinced me to go) about something or other and it was really boring. Really disappointing. Again, the director and actors were invited to come up afterwards, but it was midnight at that point so we left.


Ahhh! Longest post ever! Until next time! Tschüss!