I got married in Lenzen, a small town in the northwest of Brandenburg. My grandparents lived here, and my parents have now settled permanently nearby. Lenzen is situated near the river Elbe with its stunning national park. The town itself has a medieval centre that is slowly left to decay, a fate shared with many towns in this rather poor and depopulating part of Germany.
One highlight of our recent trip to Dresden was the visit of the Militärhistorische Museum, the military history museum of the German Army, the Bundeswehr. It recently underwent a dramatic modernisation using the designs of starchitect Daniel Libeskind and re-opened its doors in 2011 amid much fanfare. The striking shard-like structure symbolises the Allied bombing squads’ formation that put to ashes large parts of Dresden in 1945.
Berlin’s Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz is one of my favourite urban spots. Here, Berlin’s history comes alive like hardly anywhere else. Buildings from several decades stand together where important historical events took place. Meanwhile, new houses are being built. Like the one in Linienstrasse 40, German architect Roger Bundschuh’s strange synthesis between art and architecture.
I just got back from a short trip to Dresden. My parents treated us to the hotel, so we had to go with their choice of location in the fringes of the renovated old town. It proved to be a decent place and took us past the very interesting Pirnaischer Platz each day. Here, two buildings stood out, necessitating some further research.
