We have been cycling plenty while in Germany from mid-June until mid-July. A lot of it has been through Berlin, allowing me to see parts of my hometown that I hadn’t seen before (e.g. here). The high point of our biking, however, was a three-day tour from Berlin to my parents’ home in northwestern Brandenburg. Herewith some impressions from the trip.
Category Archives: Architecture
Waldsiedlung Krumme Lanke
This “forest settlement” in Berlin’s Zehlendorf district is an eerie place. Finished in 1939, the SS wanted only its own officers to live here. The rural architecture is out of place in a metropolis like Berlin, which ventured far down the modern road just a decade before. We came across this important residential complex during one of our cycling trips through Berlin’s southwest.
Forum Museumsinsel
Berlin has many high-profile holes in its urban fabric. These can be relics of the Cold War era – places in between East and West Berlin. They can also be derelict buildings with unclear ownership status. Others on the other hand can fall victim to their own ambition. Wandering through the large Forum Museumsinsel, I was wondering whether the place falls into the latter category.
Alexanderplatz
When in Berlin I live a five-minute walk away from Alexanderplatz. The square has had a tumultuous past. Its glory days were in the early twentieth century when it was one of the busiest intersections in the city. Completely destroyed during the war, Alexanderplatz was rebuilt as a Socialist model square. Today, and quite synonymous with Berlin as a whole, there’s a lot of confusion over the future direction of urban planning.
Alexa shopping centre
Landpartie
We hit the road yesterday and visited a few places in the vicinity of my parents’ house in the countryside. The trip took us to Doemitz, birthplace of my mother, Ludwigslust, where my parents went to school and my sister was born, and a whole lot of villages in between. Herewith a few impressions.
Lenzen
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.
Transient The Hague
The Hague used to be my home for two and a half years. Altogether I lived in the Netherlands for almost four. I took a trip down Memory Lane last week and visited my former colleagues and some friends here.
Souzou, Hyde Park
We spent an afternoon with friends two weekends ago, first to see an exhibition in the Wellcome Collection near Euston Station followed by a stroll around Hyde Park. Here we walked past London’s possibly most exclusive real estate address (1 Hyde Park) on our way to this year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavillon, designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto.
Serpentine Gallery Pavillon by Sou Fujimoto
Cheviot House
This Art Deco building on Commercial Road near Shadwell DLR caught my eye when walking the area recently. Cheviot House was built in 1937 for textile merchants called Kornberg & Segal. The local Tower Hamlets borough apparently has plans to demolish the building and earmark the plot for new residential development.
Seven Sisters
I briefly passed by Seven Sisters this weekend to catch the Victoria Line. The Wards Corner Building below is a former department store that has been slated for demolition for some while. A regeneration project is bound to transform the whole area.