Berlin, September , 2012

The last times I was in Berlin were 1966 and '67.  At that time, I thought it was a grim city.  I did not dislike it, but could not find any connection with it.  Now, since the great concordant and reunification, it is a much  improved and more comfortable city.  The photo above is two bridges - upper and lower - between new parliament buildings over the River Spree.  Much of the former "Wall" ran along the Spree.

 My hotel was in the former East Berlin and I spent most of my time in that sector as it has a lot of great restaurants, handsome old buildings, and a heavy presence  large old trees.  I stayed at an Ibis for the first time.  It is part of the huge French chain Accor.  I have a habit of staying at Novotels, and it is common for Ibis and Novotels to be neighbours, but not in this case.  The Berlin Novotel wanted $270 a night and I thought that was excessive, so I stayed at the Ibis for about $130.  Friends who have also used Ibis called them "Ikea" hotels, which is about right.  But when travelling, and cities are booked nearly solid (Berlin's busiest months are Sept. Oct - due to conventions, trade shows and the Marathon), one has to be flexible.
The street and district are named "Prenzlauer berg."  I think this is the only modern building in the entire area.  I had never previously known that when the major powers divided up Berlin, the Russians got the nicest part.  I had been taken into the East on a USAF bus tour in '67, and all we saw was endless and faceless, drab apartment blocks.  I never saw any of the nice part until now.

The most dominant feature of Berlin is "Museum island," where a large number of major museums in giant 19th C. buildings have opened.  The one shown above it the grimiest and dirtiest looking, but all the rest are restored and fresh looking.  But if you can enlarge this photo, and look at the pillars, you will see a lot of bullet holes.  Some in other buildings are bigger than an open hand.  Those are original parts of buildings.  The ones without Russian bullet holes are restorations.
In the lower photo, many of the tower pillars are shot up and dark, as is the ring above them.  Those are original, but the copper dome, and the light/ivory clean parts  are all new.  You can see the red roofed building is like new - because it is.  It is difficult to comprehend that so much work has been done in Berlin in the past 20-25 years.

No, no no, I sometimes may feel like the above, but it is not me.  This is a painting on a wall in front of an artist's studio in Berlin.  Obviously you do not want to see what he sees.  If you look closely at the two right-most fingers, in the middle you will see what must have been the bars of a window plastered over.
Nearby at the same art studio was a buffalo partly made of old wooden chair seats, and a two-headed monster in the tree probably made of plastic.  A thunderstorm was just beginning and I did not have time to stay longer.  But the monster was scarey.

In most old Euro cities, you see these arched doorways.  They were all designed to admit a two horse carriage, with the horses being side-by-side, and a carriage of a slightly less width.  Now, some of them are driveways into courtyards, but a lot have been replaced by doors.  I saw doors that surely would cost $10,000-20,000 to replace - often of the most beautiful wood and design, now defaced constantly by morons. The Berlin city centre is constantly being cleaned of this illness.  But the neighbourhoods cannot keep up with it.  Some actually paint over the trash weekly .I saw one painted comment somewhere referring to "Einstein."  I thought 'Imagine, one of the most ignorant people in human history pays tribute to the smartest.'  This disease has attacked Berlin for a long time now and the city - like Athens - is utterly defaced by idiots.

This is a beautiful pile of crushed junk in the middle of an office complex atrium.  It is about 40' tall and because there is a skylight above it,  every photo is over-exposed or under-exposed, but the detail above is probably the closest to the actual colours.  This work has been featured in many art and travel magazines.  It is clever.

The foyer of the Ka De We department store in Berlin.  This store is about as large as Macy's in NY and is v. expensive.  But it is a pleasant visit and there are a lot of nice things one does not see anywhere else - in our contemporary world where sameness seems to be celebrated.  This is but a fraction of the forest of trees with pink lights that created a most unusual Dept. store welcome.

As you know, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra is one of the most revered in the world.  It was with some surprise then, that a couple of years ago, they built and moved into what critics said was an indescribably ugly new hall.  I certainly agree.  This view of it is probably the most charitable and even it looks awful.

I am adding two images from Leipzig I missed earlier.  The blue church-like building is part of the prestigious Leipzig University, as is the tower in the lower photo.  The brown hat-like structure is the philharmonic hall of the Leipzig Gewandhaus - also one of most respected orchestras in the world.

Nearby the ugly Berlin philharmonic is the Gemaldegalerie - the museum level collection of art masterworks you expect in every major city.  But in Berlin - for some reason I cannot even imagine - this massive and wonderful collection is played down - way down.  Few guides even list it and no tours go there.  As a result, I was practically alone with maybe a hundred other people in this giant building and collection.  I really enjoyed it.
Somewhat by accident, I found the Helmut Newton Museum of Photography.  What a great place.  It was the most interesting show I saw in all of Berlin.  Newton was great and charming fashion photographer in his work time. He shot all the big Paris designers' works for the Spring and Fall shows for mags like Vogue and Elle.  He made a lot of money and lived a kind of charmed life.
He was handsome and fit and seemed healthy nearly to the end of his life. It seems likely when he died,  like Picasso's heirs, his estate would have been bankrupted by the huge amount of assets he left them (not necessarily cash or liquid assets) if they paid all the death duties due. So his widow donated a lot of his photos, videos, his entire home office including furniture, art etc., some of his clothing,  correspondence to and from him (much of which is framed on display), his handmade jeep which was made for him by an auto designer, his cameras, and many other things.
His own personal photography - which makes up the permanent museum show - is almost entirely  beautiful naked women.  Search his name on Google to get an idea of his special work.
I could not explain it, but it seemed to me that despite the nakedness, the photos are all very respectful.  In fact, his wife June, was present at many of the shootings.  I always liked the bold attitude and works of HN and it was a special pleasure to see so much of his non-commercial work displayed together.