Posts Tagged ‘Charlottenburg’
Paper & Tea
Aarti Mehta-Kroll rediscovers an old tradition at one of Berlin's finest, conceptual tea houses… P & T I grew up in India drinking chai: milk, water, black tea leaves, sugar and masala heated till the mixture turned the right shade of brown. Every afternoon, my mum would lay this out along with salty snacks. When we were home, my dad and I would also engage in this tea ceremony, stopping whatever we were doing, taking a few moments to relax and chat over this hot beverage. When [...]
On the Heerstrasse
Marcel Krueger discovers an abundance of history along West Berlin's Heerstrasse... Theodor-Heuss-Platz West Berlin's Heerstrasse isn't much to look at. A mundane, five-lane expressway connecting the trade fair with the district of Spandau in the west, it eventually morphs into federal highway No. 5, transporting its human cargo towards the northern city of Hamburg. But to stroll alongside this Ballardian mesh of concrete and speeding metal is to cut a cross-section through 150 [...]
City Lit: Kurfürstendamm
Suzi from Packabook.com throws away her guidebook to explore one of Berlin's most famous streets via two novels... One of the great joys of reading books set in the city you're visiting is the way they can help you understand your surroundings. I like to read novels as if they're maps - keys to places I've not yet unlocked. Some people like guide books...I'd rather read a novel. I think I'm right in saying that for most non-German speakers, the street names in Berlin can be a bit [...]
The Art Of Urban Sketching
Berlin Illustrator Rolf Schroeter talks about his passion for Urban Sketching and the relationship between art and place... I was born in a small town near Cologne in West Germany. After an apprenticeship as a stonemason I travelled to Italy, then took a degree in architecture from RWTH Aachen. During all that time, and especially during my architectural studies, I used sketchbooks. I worked as a tutor alongside Professor Heiner Hoffmann, who put a strong emphasis on filling sketchbooks with [...]
Q&A: Guido Steenkamp, Photographer
Paul Sullivan chats to Berlin street photographer Guido Steenkamp... Where were you born and what sparked your interest in photography? I grew up in a small town in West Germany, close to the Dutch border. I moved to Berlin about 12 years ago to start my first job. I began to take pictures more or less by accident when a friend gave a camera to me. Right from the beginning the darkroom was a kind of magical place for me: the moment you see the first contours of a picture on what was a piece [...]
Marga Schoeller Bookshop
A charming Charlottenburg bookshop with a great selection of English titles and a warm, old school vibe... Not many bookstores can say they've been in operation for over eight decades, especially in a city as historically turbulent as Berlin - but Marga Schoeller's can. Opened in 1929 by the eponymous Frau Schoeller, the shop originally specialised in European literature and theatre works. Schoeller managed to stay open during the National Socialist years despite refusing to sell Nazi [...]
Slow Art Day, 17th April 2010
A new international event that encourages us to Slow down and take more time to enjoy art. Most of us have been guilty of blurring around at least one museum or gallery in our lives, ignoring the majority of the art therein, or focusing more on what's for dinner later than what's in front of us. Indeed, research shows that people spend as little as eight seconds looking at an individual work. Which is why New Yorker Phil Terry, founder of non-profit Reading Odyssey, created the Slow Art [...]
Walking The Landwehr Kanal
Kevin Braddock ponders the infographic and the psychogeographic during a stroll along the Landwehr Kanal at –15˚C... A Berlin mate of mine happens to be a very successful illustrator known for composing colourful infographics and tiny, pixelated portraits of popstars. We often spend evenings in the bars around Kottbusser Tor pontificating on life, on the whole agreeing with each other. One day though we happened upon a quite intractable difference in our views. It crystallised around [...]
Käthe Kollwitz Museum
A harrowing collection of works by one of Germany’s most acclaimed female artists… Charlottenburg’s Käthe Kollwitz Museum is one of those Berlin attractions not particularly recommended for anyone looking to cheer themselves up on a rainy day. This permanent exhibition, which opened in 1986, is housed in a charming 19th century villa next to the Literaturhaus on Fasanenstrasse. It presents an extensive range of the German artist’s work, embracing “crucial aspects of life [...]
