Chris | Postcards From Here and There

5 Alternative Things to do in Berlin

Back in Berlin which is rapidly becoming my new favourite city. Having done many of the regular touristy sights back in September I thought that for this visit I’d concentrate on maybe some of the less well known.

Street Art

There is so much fantastic street art in Berlin its difficult to know where to start. Many first time visitors to the city will take in the magnificent East Side Gallery, a collection of murals painted on a preserved section of The Berlin Wall. You can read about my visit here. If that has whet your appetite for more there is plenty to choose from. From the eastern end of the gallery you can head up Warschauer Straße to the junction with Revaler Straße. There are old, disused railway sheds just off Revaler Straße which have now been converted into bars, cafés, artist spaces and even one of Europe’s largest indoor skateboard parks. The walls of these buildings are awash with art of all descriptions.

Alternatively you can cross the river Spree into Kreuzberg where the art is not as concentrated but you will find some significant works covering the whole sides of buildings.

There are numerous walking tours of Berlin’s street art some of which are guided by street artists themselves. They can save you a lot of time researching where the best and most interesting art actually is and give excellent insights into the artists themselves and their works. If you are unsure but want to check out the street art I would definitely recommend looking out for a suitable tour.

The Stasi Museum.

The site of the former Stasi headquarters is located close to Magdalenenstraße U-Bahn station, a short trip from Alexanderplatz on the U5, and is accessed by a short passageway. There are over 50 buildings which accommodated over 7000 Stasi employees giving you a sense of the scale of the place. The buildings themselves are a time capsule of 1960s functional architecture with few ornamental features. As you enter the main courtyard it is like stepping back in time and does feel slightly nervy and unsettling.

The Stasi were the East German Secret Police that were responsible for state security following World War II until the reunification of Germany. They conducted mass surveillance and actively encouraged people to inform on their family, friends and neighbours. The former head quarters in Lichtenberg are now a museum which gives a fascinating insight into these dark times. The main building, House 1, was built in the early sixties as the official residence of Erich Mielke, who was head of state security for 32 years until November 1989. His offices on the second floor have been preserved exactly how they were found and look that they were never updated since first built. There is much to see in the museum and it is well worth a visit. There is also an open air exhibition to the right of the museum entrance which examines the roles of those that helped bring down the East German communist regime.

Haus Schwarzenberg.

Located off Rosenthaler Straße near to Hackescher Markt station you could easily walk by and miss it and it would be a great shame indeed because this is a gem. The courtyard is a top destination for street art with works by many notable artists, it’s is awash with colour and you find yourself not knowing what to look at next, a real workout for the senses. The courtyard is home to more than street art, Otto Weidt’s Workshop for the Blind is a small museum in the former factory where between 1940 and 1943 Otto offered a refuge for blind and disabled Jews. Anne Frank Zentrum tells the story of this remarkable teenager. A portrait of her by street artist JimmyC adorns the wall by the entrance.

There are also studios, a gallery, bar and a club called Monster Kabinett which features robots and other mechanical automata in a show set to loud music.

Urban Nation.

A museum dedicated to urban contemporary art at Bülowstraße 7. It is in the district of Schöneberg which is well worth a visit for its cafés and independent shops. Urban Nation can be accessed on the U1 or U3 with the closest station being Nollendorfplatz. The museum features art both on the inside and outside with ever changing external murals. Entry is free and I can not recommend this enough. It doesn’t appear in many guide books and I found out about it from. a tour guide. Some of the work here is quite extraordinary and a highlight of this visit to Berlin.

Also in Schöneberg and about a 15/20 minute walk from Urban Nation is the building where David Bowie and Iggy Pop lived in the 1970s (Hauptstraße 155). There is a comparative plaque on the wall.

Explore the neighbourhoods.

Berlin’s neighbourhoods are like small towns towns within the city each with its own distinct feel. It is worth spending some time exploring some of these neighbourhoods, there is no better way than strolling the streets and a walking tour with a local guide is an excellent way to do this. Where you choose will depend on your own particular interests but I particularly enjoyed discovering a little of Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg and Schöneberg. With vibrant café and bar scenes which often offer great value for money and there are plenty of independent retailers with small interesting shops a plenty.

Collective Arts Can Art

One key feature of the craft beer movement is its creativity and innovation. Brewers are continually experimenting to produce not just a core range of beers but seasonal and one-off brews. Collective Arts Brewing was founded in 2013 by Bob Russell and Matt Johnson in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Collective Arts have taken creativity and innovation a stage further by working with artists and musicians in a collaborative process which results in limited edition works of art being featured on the cans. I have long been struck by the use of the humble can as a canvas for some very original artworks and designs but have only recently come across Collective Arts as their beers have only been available in the UK since last autumn.

They call for artist to submit work every three months and so far they have received over 16000 submissions and have worked with 650 artists and musicians. Their website is well worth a look as it details the art used in the twelve series of beer releases since 2013. There are even plans to give access to a free song or video from featured musicians via a link on the can. Here are some examples currently available in UK bottle shops.

Nothing for Miles – John Godfrey (Hamilton, Canada). Series 10

Bird Paradise – Dora Wang (Boston). Series 10

Spaceman – Judson Collier (San Francisco). Series 9

Raven – Edgar Allan Slothman (West Hartford). series 9

Mr Confused – Yu-Ming Huang (New York). Series 9

Sea Squatch – Magge Gagiardi (Berlin). Series 9

Manchester Street Art

Manchester’s Northern Quarter is home to bars, cafés, restaurants, vinyl record shops, designers, artists and musicians. To some it may well be the very definition of hipster, a term that is used for the buzzing creative areas in any city that you visit these days. These are the areas of cities I like to seek out because they are really interesting and I can never resist a vinyl record store. Situated between the the two principal railway stations of Piccadilly and Victoria and north of Piccadilly Gardens it is an urban, gritty area that has grown enormously in popularity in recent years. As with such areas it has attracted street artists and the Cities of Hope festival, held in 2016, saw the production of some major works. Street art by its very nature is ephemeral, constantly changing and evolving, one of the very things that makes it interesting to search out. These are some of the pieces I came across in a short walk around the area, there are no doubt others that I just simply didn’t haver time to locate. The whole fun is to go out and explore.

Hydro has works all over the world and this piece on Brightwell Walk formed part of the Cities of Hope festival and depicts the impact of war on children lives. A blindfolded child holds an AK47 while a menacing, shadowy figure stands behind. It is a very striking image.

Alongside it on Brightwell Walk is a portrait by local artist Tankpetrol of the author Anthony Burgess who wrote the dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange. The inscription reads “We can destroy what we have written but we cannot unwrite it”

French artist C215 has a number of stencil portraits in the city. This piece on Tariff Street raises the issue of homelessness, a significant problem in the city, as elsewhere, currently.

He also has some stencilled images on shutters on the corner of Stevenson Square and Spear Street of which this is just one example.

Across the street is a huge work by the Swiss street art collective Nevercrew. It shows a large crystal with people falling off it from the bottom. It was done as part of Cities of Hope to raise awareness of immigration issues.

On Port Street you can find one of the oldest pieces in the city, by Sheffield artist Faunagraphic, that dates back to 2011. not surprisingly the paint is a little faded in places but it remains a striking image covering the whole side of the building.

Dale Grimshaw created this work to highlight the issue of the independence campaign for West Papua.

I am particular fan of the art that appears on hoardings around building sites and areas of land awaiting development. This is very much here today gone tomorrow in many cases and you have to catch it while you can. The area near the top end of Spear Street and adjacent streets contain some good examples.

One of the points in favour of large scale art works on the sides of buildings is that they are protected to a degree from the influence of others. I particularly like the work by Norwegian street artist Martin Watson on Faraday Street which is a stencil and freehand piece. The leaves on the tree are graffiti tags and it is a really interesting piece created to raise awareness of the environment. Sadly others have added their own tags to the piece.

Also on Faraday Street is this marvellous work by Zadok.

Across Great Ancoats Street and viewable as you cross the road, is this work on the side of Swan Building, in Cable Street by Case highlighting disability issues.

Finally two works that I somehow seem to have failed to note where they were located exactly. The first is on a doorway which may well be on Edge Street and is by Italian street artist Alice Pasquini.