Posts Tagged ‘Kreuzberg’
Book Review: Berlin by David Clay Large
Paul Scraton takes a closer look at David Clay Large's fantastic history of the city... “What Potsdamer Platz resembles is an edge city; one of those private, development-driven urbanoid clusters that have sprouted up across the American landscape in recent years. It is reassuring that the new Potsdamer Platz is notably without nationalist expressions. The downside of this is that the place could be anywhere. Like other edge cities, it occupies a kind of nebulous international airport [...]
City Lit: Ten Berlin Books
Berlin has been the inspiration and provided the setting for many novels. Berlin based writer Madhvi Ramani rounds up ten of her favourites... 10. Book of Clouds by Chloe Aridjis “Ever since arriving in Berlin I’d become a professional in lost time. It was impossible to account for all the hours. The hands on clocks and watches jumped ahead or lagged behind indiscriminately. The city ran its own chronometric scale.” Tatiana is a Mexican in Berlin who flits from one job to [...]
Liquidrom
William Thirteen gets pampered at one of Berlin's most unique spas... Anyone who spends much time here soon realises that Berlin is the three-toed sloth in the zoo of European capitals. While the denizens of London and Paris race about their cities, pressing past each other like anxious antelope on a headlong rush to high-rent, fashionably-appointed dooms, Berliners are hard pressed to tear themselves away from that second Milchkaffee before happy hour - and then only to wander off to [...]
A Time Of Waist
Mairi Beautyman meets Miss Moss, Berlin's very own corset maker... Theatrical wardrobe touches - say a man wearing a hoody with sequined bunny ears recently spotted skipping the line at waterfront club Bar 25 - open doors in Berlin. A tanked economy, an influx of artists and Flapper roots converge to make this city one that scoffs at fashion for the sake of a pricey designer label. Dressing up here is all about individualism - precision-scattering of one-off, hand-made, or vintage pieces. [...]
The Badeschiff
Looking to beat the summer heat? Try Berlin's Badeschiff - a swimming pool in the Spree... Badeschiff - literally "bathing ship" - opened in 2004 as an art project organized by Berlin's Stadtkunstprojekte (City Art ProjectSociety), the AMP Architectos (Teneriffa), architect Gil Wilk and local artist Susanne Lorenz.The initial aim was to enliven city life along what was then a long-neglected stretch of the Spree, between the former Osthafen (East harbour) and Flutgraben, a small [...]
The Shy Chef
A slightly disappointing date with Berlin's underground dining scene... I first heard about Berlin’s Shy Chef around a year ago, when a friend enthused about an incredible, intimate dinner party they’d been to, where they met all these lovely people and ate really exquisite food...“all in the chef’s own lounge!" Even then the idea of ‘underground’ or ‘guerilla’ dining wasn't so new, nor was there a dearth of it in Berlin. For visitors or incoming residents to the city, [...]
Teufelsberg: Berlin’s North Face
A personal walking excursion to one of Berlin's most mysterious landmarks... Considering it’s a city with lots of neighbourhoods named after hills (Prenzlauer Berg, Kreuzberg, Schöneberg and so on), Berlin is a challengingly flat place. You can walk for miles and miles without rising so much as an inch above the median above-sea-level altitude. Nor would the more notable inclines in the city’s topography – the gradual north-easterly rise along Prenzlauer Allee, for instance - trouble an [...]
Q&A: Cynthia Barcomi
A Q&A with Berlin 'Baking Queen' Cynthia Barcomi American ex-pat Cynthia Barcomi moved to Berlin in 1985 as a professional dancer. She opened up her first cafe - Barcomi’s - in Kreuzberg's Bergmannstrasse in 1994, which sold her own roasted coffee blend and home made cakes. A few years later she followed up with her Mitte branch, set in a beautiful ivy-covered courtyard close to Hackeschermarkt. Cynthia has also written three cookbooks full of her wonderful baking recipes... Where [...]
Prinzessinnengärten
Berlin’s newest urban garden has a royal name and a noble mission… Prinzessinnengärten, or Princess Gardens - is the romantic name of a not-very-romantic urban street in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, hidden away in an alternative enclave of Turkish culture and noisy traffic near the Moritzplatz roundabout. In the center of this largely unused and cluttered space, two ambitious guys began an urban gardening project. Robert, one of the two founders of Prinzessinnengärten had lived [...]
G Wie Goulasch
Simple, home made goulash served in an intimate “living room” environment… Blink and you’ll miss G Wie Goulasch, an itsy eaterie on Chamissoplatz, the quiet square that lies around the corner from bustling Bergmannstrasse. Occupying a small house on the corner of Arndtstrasse, it’s run by Andre Schmermbeck, whose simple business idea was to create a place that serves up hearty, home-made goulash. You know - the kind you get at grandma’s house. It feels a bit like you’re [...]
