Alternative Berlin

When people say that Berlin has an explosive underground, they aren’t just referring to its radical nightlife and its alternative scenes.  The city’s soil itself is liberally peppered with unexploded WWII explosives.  This is a city where everyday activities like digging a vegetable patch, building a house or even taking a boat ride could potentially bring you face-to-face with a grenade or bomb.  In other words, you don’t have to be radical to feel like you’re living life on the edge!

Unexploded bombs are just one part of Berlin’s legacy as an ex-Nazi stronghold that is still felt by its modern residents.  In the days leading up to Hitler’s downfall, more than 465,000 tonnes of bombs were dropped on Berlin and about one eighth of those bombs never exploded.  They lie rusting below the city’s calm fields and in its river banks like so many overripe seeds, ready to explode at a moment’s notice into a fiery bloom.

A year doesn’t go by in this city without at least a couple of these bombs putting in an cameo appearance, bobbing up from the bed of the river Spree or nestled in an old building foundation, like sinister time capsules.  Now that Tegel airport is due to be transformed into an alternative cultural and entertainment park, the unexploded bomb issue has resurfaced with a vengeance.  A few bombs were found at the airport, both during its construction and after its opening.  No doubt the demolition crews will have to tread lightly too, as will future visitors.  That should add a shot of adrenalin to the activities of artists and dissidents who end up using the space!

So it’s easy to understand why Berlin has such an edgy reputation: the entire city is walking on tenterhooks.  But don’t worry.  If you’re taking a tour with Alternative Berlin you can always take comfort from the fact that we’re  insured for bomb explosions!

© Alexia E. Elliott

Work in RAW Tempel by street artist Italian 'Alice'

Berlin´s street art scene can never be accused of being stagnant, inactive, lazy or boring. The sheer volume of local artists and international visitors ensures that the scene moves and develops at a frantic pace. But like most creative disciplines, it goes through peaks and troughs. There are times when the level of excitement seems to reach fever pitch; for instance, when the likes of Viktor Ash, Vhils and Blu suddenly appeared in the city’s urban precincts a few years ago. In recent months, there have been visits from other street art heavyweights,  as well as lesser-known newcomers.  All seem to be stopping passers-by in their tracks with clever, imaginative works.  Like gallery enthusiasts buzzing about new exhibitions in the city’s more chic creative spaces, everyday Berliners proudly point out and comment upon these ever changing street art works in their vibrant, colourful neighbourhoods.  Below are the works of three artists who have been making regular contributions to Berlin’s street art buzz.

Jimmy C
Last week three stunning new pieces appeared at venues in Mitte and Friedrichshain by street artist Jimmy C.  He was able to lay down these three murals with the help of location scout Enar, who also works at Alternative Berlin as a guide and artist.  Jimmy C hails from Adelaide, Australia.  In the 1990’s Jimmy became known for his aerosol murals in urban and regional communities across Australia.  Later, Jimmy played a part in developing in South Australia’s graffiti scene. By coordinating numerous community arts projects, he gave street art a broader acceptance in the community while teaching street art techniques to young fans of the art form. Jimmy C has exhibited his art all over the world: Sydney, London, Japan and London.  Some of his most familiar works can be seen on the city streets he quietly visits. Wandering around the streets of these cities, one occasionally spots incredible murals like the one below, at Haus Schwarzenberg.

Jimmy C is best known for his drip painting style. The Drip painting technique is a form of abstract art perfected by mid-twentieth century artist Jackson Pollock.  Paint is dripped or poured onto the canvas using unconventional tools like sticks, hardened brushes and even blasting syringes, creating energetic abstract works.  Mexican muralists painters such as David Alfaro Siqueiros specialize in this technique but Jimmy C has transformed it through the use of aerosols and brushes.

Zipper.
With a colourful assembly of spaceships and outer-worldly characters, street artist Zipper is rocketing to a high position in Berlin’s streetart scene. His cleverly-placed “D.A.D.’s” (as he calls them) can be seen above cafes, on traffic lights, city walls and even passing trams, where they put a smile on the faces of anyone looking to the skies for inspiration. There are literally hundreds of these rockets lighting up the streets of Berlin and Hamburg.

Zipper production line

Zipper’s rocketships are produced in secret, possibly in Hamburg, where he resides.  Some are simply cut and painted on foam and others are intricately designed.  Most feature spaceships and space characters like ‘Rock´n Roll Man’ and ‘The Street fighter’.
One gets the feeling there are perhaps a few cleverly hidden messages in the works. Some are accompanied by the caption, ‘WE NEED SPACE’.  To me this suggests that all of us in the urban environment are becoming an endangered species… but I recommend that you get out there, find all the pieces of Zipper’s puzzle, and piece together their meanings for yourself. Feel free to post your interpretations here!  You can check out some more of Zipper’s rippers on his Facebook page.

AliCè.
Alice Pasquini is a visual artist, illustrator, painter and set designer from Rome, Italy.  She specializes in animation for cinema and television at the ARS ANIMACION school. Her artwork, which features a distinctive teal or aqua hue and beautifully-drawn illustrations, can be seen on the streets of London, Paris, Rome, Madrid and now Berlin too. Her work quite often features strong, empowered women displaying acts of love, hope, and affection.  While other public art features themes such as despair, homelessness,  anger, frustration and political angst, Alice´s art brings a more uplifting, romantic quality to the streets.

Following Alice’s career on the streets of Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, one gets the sense of watching an imaginary character’s life unfold. Hopes, memories, dreams, fantasies, friendship and even pets feature in her beautiful, illustrative works. Sometimes her works take the form of huge murals, as in Rome and London, while others are so tiny you could pass them every day and not spare a thought for the imaginary beings they depict. Alice’s works can be seen on Schliesches Strasse , Kottbusser damm, RAW Tempel.  She often works alongside the equally-talented stencil artist C215.

Alice says she creates art about people and their relationships.  “I’m interested in representing human feelings and exploring different points of view.  I am often annoyed by female stereotypes proposed by artists [..] I am seduced instead by real women and hope that, by proposing a different female universe in the street, I will help build a new image of women.”  It would be almost impossible to convey the scope of her work in this blog entry, it’s so diverse.  Instead, I urge you to take a deep dive here.

Alternative Berlin runs a a dedicated Street Art Tour and Workshop which explores the city’s street art landmarks, both the classics and the newest, buzz-generating pieces in town.  Book a tour here and we’ll show you the big picture (pardon the pun)!

The Köpi are reopening their techno cellar tomorrow for a night of swanky, gritty, noisy, ghetto elektro-punk.  As far a we can tell tomorrow’s Soliparty (benefit party) at the Köpi is a benefit for, well, benefit parties.  It seems that the antifascist, subcultural, non-commercial party collective Kontrollverlust was recently fined by the cops for holding an illegal benefit party.  Their solution?  To throw another benefit party so they can cover the cost of the fine, of course!  Now we just need to find out what the original benefit party was in aid of and we’ll be sorted.

The lineup features ‘shiny,hip-hop, death-f***’ artist Cat N’Guyen (pictured above) a ‘hardcorelafftraknintendocorepunkstuntpunkterrorKöln’ band called Lafftrack, DJ Emiliano Nenzo who plays ‘TechHouseMinimal’ and DJ KOMAndo Beretto, who plays ‘PonyRaveGeshredder’ .

Enjoy the weekend and be sure to watch this space for more views from Berlin’s party gutter courtesy of Alternative Berlin!

© Alexia E. Elliott

Bedrohung, Zwangsversteigerung, Rettung, Evakuierung, Umzäunung, Protest, Hungerstreik, Stürmung, Auszug, Rückkehr – das Tacheles hat seit 1909 sicherlich viel erlebt doch in den letzten Monaten überschlagen sich die Meldungen und versucht man von den Künstlern im Haus zu erfahren wie es weiter geht bleibt unter´m Strich die Meinung: Nichts Genaues weiß man nicht aber wir bleiben hier und kämpfen.

Seit Beginn unserer alternativen Touren besuchen wir das Tacheles, unterschreiben Petitionen, gehen zu Demonstrationen und bangen um die Existenz des Gebäudes und der Ateliers, Shops und Werkstätten der Künstler. Nach Monaten der Sorge und Frage: Was passiert, wenn die Investoren gewinnen und das Kunsthaus stirbt haben wir letzte Woche gesehen wie die Zukunft aussehen könnte.

Laut Vereinsatzung ist der Zweck des Tacheles die Förderung von Kunst und Kultur und das Bestreben mit Veranstaltungen und Workshops zur Verständigung zwischen den Völkern beizutragen, die Gründungsidee: Freiräume für alternative Kunst und Kultur schaffen. Sie verschwinden zwar zunehmends doch sind immer noch hier: Freiräume für Kreativität, Subkultur und alles wofür wir Berlin so lieben und Pro Art Tacheles schickt seit Samstag die Skulpturen aus dem Tacheles auf Reise. Das Projekt M.A.P. Mobile Art Project startete im Plus Hostel Berlin.

Im Innenhof haben die Skulpturen endlich wieder einen Platz gefunden und auch eine Werkstatt für neue Kreationen sowie ein Ausstellungsraum sind entstanden. In ungewohnt zeitgenössischer Architektur zwischen Anzügen finden sich die Künstler, Punks und das übliche Publikum. Zuerst etwas merkwürdig dann aber sehr inspirierend und zukunftsweisend. Über die Ausstellung hinaus organisiert der Verein Art Pro Tacheles in den Räumen des Hotels wechselnde Exhibits und stellt Wohnräume und Ateliers für internationale Künstler zu Verfügung.

Die Vernissage war der Startschuss für Das Mobile Art Project (M.A.P.) und setzt sich als Ziel die Gründungs-Idee des Tacheles in Berlin zu verbreiten und Freiräume für Künstler, offene Ateliers für Besucher zu schaffen und Kurse und Workshops anzubieten.

Parallel zu der neuen Metallwerkstatt an der Warschauer Brücke ist in den vergangenen Wochen auch ein anderes neues Künstlerhaus in Kreuzberg entstanden, welches sich ebenso zum Ziel setzt kreativen Menschen bezahlbare Räume zur Verfügung zu stellen. In der alten Post in der Skalitzer öffnete das WYE zum ersten Mal seine Türen für Besucher des Vodoo Marktes und die 2 von 4 geöffneten Geschosse machen Hoffnung auf kulturellen Freiraum, tolle Events, offene Ateliers und Workshops.

Was die Hoffnung auf das Überleben des Tacheles seit April aufrecht erhält, auch wenn das Gebäude zu schwinden scheint ist Treptopolis

. Gegründet von Kemal Cantürk, der bereits 1990 bei der Besetzung des Tacheles anwesend war, bietet der alter Supermarkt in Treptow alles was das subkulturelle Herz begehrt: Kino, Theatherbühne, Metall Skulpturen und bald ein Cafe im Hof.

Die Gedanken sind frei und so ist die Kunst – Vielen Dank für die neuen Gebäude und Initiativen, wir haben wieder Hoffnung dass die Idee des kreativen Freiraums bestehen bleibt auch wenn die HSH die Oranienburger Straße verschlingt. Vielleicht kann Privatisierung und Zerstörung auch ein Neubeginn sein auch wenn der Kampf um den Erhalt des Tacheles bei allen an oberster Stelle steht.

Two buildings face each other on the Spree: one is a shiny highrise, its mosaic of metallic colours gleaming on the roadside.  It is the new Mercedes Benz building that will be constructed by Caimmo.  Across the road from it sits a beach club with a colourful graffiti-style sign and gates flung wide open.  Inside a festive assembly of shacks serving food and drinks encloses an umbrella filled courtyard which opens onto a Spree-side beach.

Right: The proposed Mercedes building en-situ.  YAAM occupies a vacant lot next to East Side Gallery park.

Humble spaces like the YAAM club epitomize Berlin’s style and spirit.  They put the spotlight on the city’s people: groups of students making nervous forays into the bar, throngs of hip travellers whose nonchalance suppressed the thrill of discovery; the Afro-Caribbean men who work in its stalls; the laid back scenesters who make their second home here, exuding an aura of purposeful calm that is years beyond their real age.  By contrast the Mercedes Benz building, and other new, shiny attractions which resemble it, are mute.  Their strikingly modern and high-end designs may catch the eye but they can only hold it for a few seconds.  They are no match for the ever shifting tapestry of humanity in YAAM and grassroots hang-outs like it.

The new highrise theatres, hotels, and in some cases, hostels, going up all around Berlin repel casual visitors.  Their steely facade may add a bit of drama to the city skyline from a distance but close up, there is no reason to linger long.  No open doors, no benches or grass or trees to soften its fortress-like shapes.  They are slowly building another Berlin Wall around the Mitte, a Wall of impersonal modernity which closes its doors to the intimate, ramshackle, anything-goes local lifestyle.

Buildings like Caimmo appeal to a type of person who has never been found in Berlin before the sudden arrival of mainstream tourism.  They are an imported vision of what a successful city looks like, and they will only ever appeal to imported people like out of town entrepreneurs and tourists who are lured mainly by the city’s low prices.  This imported tourism format has created an invisible boundary between the visitor and the locality, from behind which one can indulge in voyeurism without truly interacting with the city.  New highrises with their fortress-like fronts may provide photo opportunities but they lack a visible human presence.  They are an artificial construct invented for visitors who are on a “Berlin-today, Prague-tomorrow” style travel  itinerary: people who think that they can simply take and leave the city according to their schedule’s needs.

Berlin’s people are less easily dismissed.  Step into a venue like YAAM and its living, human theatre will close around you and turn the spotlight on you, expecting you to react and interact.  Random, natural venues like these have no beginning or end, they don’t fit neatly into schedules and itineraries.  They don’t offer guarantees or consistent standards but they do offer a chance to live and breathe the local culture and learn from it.  Isn’t that what travel is supposed to be about?

Venues like YAAM put Berlin on the map because they put the city’s people first.  They offer a stage for the denizens’ creativity, their personalities and their relationships.  Only the players and the props need to be added. And as in a play,  it is the spirit and the imagination that goes into the performance that matters more than the building’s design.

Right: how long can this beautiful reggae subculture remain?

All of Berlin’s most famous clubs, bars and attractions have grown up organically from the city’s mesh of personal and political histories.  They have been shaped by the unique, personal  quirks of the people who they embody: the scenesters, the musicians and artists who spent enough time there leave impressions of themselves in paint, structure and sound.  Berlin’s biggest attraction therefore is its people and its venues are famous because of them.  What will become of the city once they are all displaced by the sort of tourists who prefer to view things from an uninvolved distance?

Simply put, big, impersonal tours go against the Berlin and other cities’ spirit.  They are no way for visitors to find out what the city is all about.  Alternative Berlin and its partners within the local travel movement offer a glimpe of what it’s like to actually be a local for a few hours, not just a glimpse of the locals themselves.  We and our guides feel that tours should enable a real exchange between visitors and the city so that they leave the city with a memory of what Berlin really is, instead of the censored memories that various agencies have decided to sell them.  We believe that that it is better to preserve the local authentic vibe by sharing it with visitors, than by enclosing it within a wall.

© Alexia E. Elliott

In the very same week that Tacheles is threatened, a new art squat makes the  scene by hosting an exhibition of 28 independent artists.  The amount  of people willing to make the trek out to suburban Weisensee for an exhibition opening on a Thursday night probably speaks to the social skills of the artists  involved in Things Fall Apart but it also symbolized the void that  Tacheles’  virtual closure has left in Berlin’s non-commercial arts  scenes.

The facebook page for Things Fall Apart reads, “The artists of the show were inspired to breathe new life into these forgotten spaces and interpret what it means to fall apart.”   American ex-pat and Alternative Berlin guide Benjamin Spalding interpreted this theme through an altar room made up of discarded and found personal possesions.  The result was a darkly cool space lit with melted candles massed on every surface, their light reflecting off the high ceilings.  It was like stepping inside of a Christian-pagan chapel from a freer time in history.

Ben, left: “I always imagine myself hacking through a very deep, dark, purple  forest and coming across different signs and decoding them.”

Ben was one of four artists at the exhibition who moonlights as a tour guide for Alternative Berlin.  Or perhaps it would be better to say that they ‘daylight’ as guides for Alternative Berlin because lately their nights have been preoccupied with conceiving and developping this exhibition.  By day they’ve been giving tourists and travellers the inside scoop on Berlin’s underground scenes but by night, they have been hard at work creating portraits, politically surreal installations and scrap altars for this exhibition  You can see some of the results of their works below.

Below: Army tent installation by Penny Rafferty

The exhibition has been so popular that it will be kept open for another two weeks and visitors may well find themselves rubbing shoulders with Mayor Klaus Wowereit, since he’s expressed an interest in checking it out.

Before the advent of ECC Atelierhaus, the exhibition space, Weissensee was an overlooked neighbourhood but Things Fall Apart has helped to put it on the map for Berlin’s alternative arts scene.

Events like Things Fall Apart shouldn’t really be called exhibitions at all because actually, they are convergence points for the living, breathing community that is Berlin’s non-commercial arts scene.   To the outside observer, a gallery like Weisensee might seem to have sprung up out of nowhere.  Some might even be tempted to conclude that places like this are transient or built on hype – a cultural flash-in-the-pan.  In reality, the Berlin art scene’s ability to disassemble and then re-assemble itself anywhere at relatively short notice is a testament to its cohesiveness as a community. We at Alternative Berlin are proud that our own guides can be a part of that.

Right: Portrait by Alana Richards

© Alexia E. Elliott

On a tour yesterday one of our guests asked me if I knew of any clubs that were open on a Wednesday night.  They are, but it took me a couple of moments to remember that Berlin is pretty unique in that sense.  No matter which day of the week you land in Berlin it’s possible to get a taste of the city’s surreal and sumptuous party scene and there’s no need to queue up outside of over-subscribed clubs like Berghain either; contrary to popular belief, Berghain is not actually the best club in Berlin – it’s just one of the best well-known clubs in Berlin.  So I’ve created this  seven day schedule, which takes you to a few of the alternatives…

Start off this Thursday night with Whiskey Tango Foxtrott at Salon Zur Wilden Renate (left) which is a stately Bleak house in Ostkreuz that appears to have been made over by a mad artistic genius.  No matter how deep you think the Renate foxhole goes they usually manage to show you something more. Then on Friday there is Royal Wedding Festival at Brunnen 70.  I don’t like to give everything away online so I will just strongly suggest that you go there in person since that is the only hope you have of finding out exactly what kind of place it is.  If you do find out, please let me know.  Even after all my visits I haven’t quite figured it out yet!

Saturday, there is always Tacheles.  The legendary art squat faced yet another eviction this week and what was their response?  To hold an all night party/vigil in the hopes that the noise and the people to keep the official wolves from their door.  This has been their strategy from the days when Spiral Tribe first occupied the building and transformed it into a landmark with endless mad parties.  The Rotationsprinzip party this Saturday carries on that tradition.  It may not be the most sustainable way to defend an occupied space but it is a fun one.

Sisyphos‘ Carousel party starts this Saturday but personally, I prefer the beer-splattered, clothing-tattered abandon of their Sunday parties.  This may be the only club in the world where you can hear live roosters crowing while basking in psychedelic lights on the sandy shore of a man-made lake at 4:00 a.m…  Nation of Gondwana, eat your heart out!  On Monday you can find out what an experimental cellist, a punk aerospace engineer and upside-down furniture have in common by checking out Experimontag at the upside-down bar, Madame Claude’s.

Dienstagwelt on Tuesday at MIKZ is always energetic, always techno, and always drenching you in weekend madness three days early… or two days late.  Bonito House club at Tresor on Wednesday may sound like a tame bet.  It may also look kind of louche and laid-back from the calm surface of its upper floors and back garden.  But if you descend into the bomb shelter-style cellar below them, you’ll find a more hardcore recreation of the club’s Mitte days, when Tresor was just an illegal party in an abandoned bank vault.

So, what was that you were saying?  That you won’t be here long enough to check out the nightlife in Berlin?  Think again!  And if you’re worried about exploring it all on your own you can always start the night at an Alternative Berlin Anti-Pub Crawl which shows you the city’s equally amazing underground bar scene.

Photos & writing © Alexia E. Elliott

Is there really a ‘war’ between the sexes? Not if you define ‘war’ as an armed conflict between two groups of people who already have lands, rights and freedoms of their own. In a ‘war’ both sides usually have access to weapons and defence training of some kind. Both sides are usually fighting to defend resources or rights that they have been granted by law or tradition. The struggle for gender equality, meanwhile, has been led by women who until recently could not even enter the military; who started off with no rights, freedoms, lands, laws or even leaders of their own. And how many ‘wars’ have you heard of where the victors simply want to work with their opponents for equal pay, or live with them in peace?

The ‘war’ between the sexes is not really a war. If anything it’s a popular revolution; a modern Peasants Revolt. Over the past 100 years, women have invaded the awesome and well-defended structures of male privilege and won some very important (but still basic) rights for themselves: the right to work, to vote, and to prosecute those who abuse or harass them. Even within the past two decades female equality has advanced quickly. Women today are assuming far more visible and important roles than many people alive today thought they ever could (would, should) assume. A similar evolutionary leap happens in every generation and every generation reacts the same way: by asking whether female equality has gone ‘far enough’. The thing is that the gender gap is closing so quickly that people fail to grasp (let alone accept).  As a result, they tend to gauge female progress by past trends instead of by future possibilities. This limits the definition of equality to a relative instead of an absolute standard.

George Orwell warned all revolutionaries about the dangers of replacing absolute equality with relative equality in his book Animal Farm. At the beginning of the tale, the animals take over the farm and create a manifesto that states, “All animals are equal”. Gradually exceptions are added to the manifesto. The pigs and dogs are granted extra meals while the rest of the animals are ‘granted’ extra work. Each amendment that’s made represents another step backwards into familiar, master-and-servant behaviours. At the end of the tale, the pigs amend the manifesto to read, “All animals are equal… but some are more equal than others” thereby legitimizing their new, regressive regime.

This tendency to backslide into familiar, antiquated ways endangers the quest for gender equality every step of the way. Women have gained a lot in the past century: a voice in the courts, in the government, in the media and the workplace. What women are still lacking (in the advanced West at any rate) is equal pay, humane representation in the media (especially advertising).  Oh, and a unilateral say in every political, financial, environmental, educational, medical and military decision that affects them. To accept anything less would be to accept that women are ‘less equal’ than men are… and there’s nothing revolutionary about that.

Fierce females who are looking to celebrate March the 8th with like-minded people should head to Femmes Fraktale’s Soliparty at the Kili Lounge tomorrow night (Thursday). There will be live painting, exhibition, performance and DJ sets by female artists. There will also be a voku (that’s a homemade, buffet-style dinner) starting from 9 p.m. Nearest S & U Bahn is Frankfurter Allee. Enjoy!

© Alexia E. Elliott

Berlin’s an easy place to blend in to.  You just throw on some big shades and a bright scarf, team them with a pair of drain-pipe jeans and Docs, maybe some legwarmers too. If you’re a girl you tousle up your hair for that bed head-look and if you’re a boy, you cut some Emo bangs into your hair.  Being a local in Berlin can be all about copping a certain style: eighties style.  Hip locals drink Champagne (Sekt) and cocktails in bars with brash names like Cocaine Cowboys and Flamingo while flipping through magazines with names like Neon.

Berlin’s love of all things 1980s isn’t just skin-deep though – the retro revival in this city also exists on a deeper level. What? I hear you ask, the eighties had a deeper level? I know, it’s easy to think of the Decade of Decadence as a shallow time. And it was shallow, at least on the surface it was. But as the Goliath of capitalism gorged itself it became more bloated and sluggish, while the Davids of the underground multiplied and grew nimble from taking aim at it. Animal rights, graffiti & stencil art, recycling, culture jamming, fanzines, scrap art, hardcore punk, feminism: all of these dissenting subcultures and countercultures became more meaningful in the 80s, because they offered a refuge from the overwhelming social ills of corruption, waste and vanity.

Berlin’s famous street art scene can be traced back to the hip hop and culture-jamming scenes of the eighties, as well as protest stencils like those done by Crass. Combinations of all three street art forms can be found on virtually every Berlin wall; in this city, street artists like Alias and El Bocho are taking them to the next level.  Their works are better-executed, the messages more profound and their imagery richer than that of their predecessors. They seem to be honing these once-shocking mediums to ensure that their messages still get out and sink in.

Print fanzines are making a comeback too, as are the glossier indie mags that base their style on eighties fanzine culture.  But the real revival of independent publishing is happening online.  Berlin has a vibrant blog culture which serves the purpose of reporting on alternative activities that are just too transient, elusive and widespread for any traditional paper to cover them. Then there are the old school regulars like Stressfaktor, which has been keeping Berlin’s left-wing underground connected for years.

Scrap art is also big in Berlin.  The style really became cool in the 1980s when it was adopted by edgy underground collectives like Mutoid Waste Co., who infamously recreated Stonehenge with Panzer tanks in Potsdamer Platz. Arresting metal sculptures may not steal the limelight quite as brazenly as they did back then, but they still define the city’s aesthetic: Eschloraque, Monster Kabinett, Peristal Singum at Wilden Renate and Majak Theatre are some of the underground institutions that embody Berlin’s industrial soul.

Two of Berlin’s most fashionable boroughs, Kreuzberg and Prenzlauer Berg, also came to international fame in the 80s because they acted as havens for squatters, punks, immigrants and anybody else who got a rude reception from the materialist mainstream. These areas may be swarming with trend-setters today but their unrepentant independence can still be seen in shops like Who Killed Bambi? which proudly flaunts its ’100% Corporation Free’ status. Other independent shops worth checking out are X-Trax (goth), Depot Zwei (hip hop) and Coretex (hardcore).

To gauge the popularity of gender-bending one needs look no further than Christopher Street Day (CSD) and Transgeniale CSD street parties, a.k.a. the German Gay Pride demonstrations. Transgender CSD emphatically blurs the boundaries between the genders to make a quasi-political point about categorization and stereotyping, where as the original CSD is more populist and quickly becoming ‘the new Love Parade’, according to some people. What’s uplifting is the amount of people from all across society who go to both events.  Clearly, Berliners are happy to keep people guessing about their gender and sexuality. Boy George would be proud!

Most of these underground, counter-cultural trends also existed in the 60s and 70s but it was the consumerism of the eighties that really brought them to the surface, particularly in cities like London and New York.  Berlin’s underground may not have a monopoly over the Mitte, Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg and Friedrichshain these days but, by placing it next to modern capitalism, its value has become even clearer.  It’s analysis of the mainstream has only become sharper in contrast.  The next few years will be a turning point for this city, just as the 1980s were a turning point for New York and London. And since Berlin has only ever marched to the beat of its own drummer, there is a good chance that it will pick a different path than London and New York did.

© Alexia E. Elliott

A few weeks ago I mentioned an exhibition by Ben de Biel, a multi-talented photographer who recorded Berlin’s post-Wall years, when much of the city was still an unreconstructed melee.  And when I say unreconstructed, what I really mean is that it was natural.   The city then really was a concrete jungle: bricks escaping from the confines of their walls, girders sagging and twisting like vines, wood being warped by the elements into elegant mis-shapes.  It was as if the elements had escaped the linear confines of the man-made environment.  Naturally, this encouraged Berlin’s residents to do the same.

As a result, the urban environment became a place where creativity and evolution flowed as seamlessly as the traffic in other major cities did.  Some of the city’s best legendary nightclubs have showcased the results – the best surviving example today being Kater Holzig.  Some people may be surprised to learn that this exclusive club is located on a site with a long legacy of underground activity.  Before the current residents moved in, the old factory had housed at least two underground clubs and a queer wagon community (Schwarzer Kanal).  The traces of old occupants could still be seen until recently: mannequin-cum-scupltures beckoned from the windows, colourful wagons parked in the yard and elaborated graffiti covering the walls.

The Turkish House in Kreuzberg is another example of how the city has merged with nature.   In 1983 a recently-arrived Turkish immigrant claimed an unused stretch of land beside the Berlin Wall to plant fruits and vegetables for his family.  Though Mr Kalin met with initial resistance from the border guards, he soon made peace with them and he has been using the site for 29 years now.   Over time it has expanded to include a makeshift house which incorporates a living tree growing alongside, and within, it.  Some of the nature that sprouted up in Berlin’s years of dereliction has also found a permanent home in guerrilla gardens, like Princess Gardens, Moritzplatz.

It was not only plants that took root in Berlin’s fertile, derelict territories; people’s imaginations also used the opportunity to grow. RAW Tempel, an old train depot in Friedrichshain, is a good example of how.  The depot was bombed heavily in WWII and remained filled with rubble until 1998, when some creative, resourceful locals who were tired of looking at its depressing view, single-handedly cleared the site.  Today, the depot is a thriving cultural hotspot with a theatre, several clubs and live music venues, a skate park and climbing tower.  The ethos of restoration and creativity has become the defining feature of the culture that has arisen around both the RAW and in the rest of Berlin.

It would be wrong to say that Berlin is a city where people have started thinking outside the box by choice; rather, the box was blown to bits during two world wars and a peaceful revolution. Creative “nature” helped to rebuild it in body, spirit and mind, and you can see how firsthand with Alternative Berlin on one of our Real Berlin Tours.

© Alexia E. Elliott