Teufelsberg

I have posted a little bit on the Teufelsberg (click "birds eye" on top and be amazed - I only discovered Bing Maps yesterday, but it has some very interesting features) already, and last week on tuesday I decided to check it out. Took the s-bahn to Heerstrasse bhf after drawing a rudimentary map (not having a printer sucks) of the area, and took my photocamera with me.

The buildings and streets look much different in this area, I somehow had the feeling of arriving at the Belgian coast (first picture is of the Bahnhof).

After a five minutes walk you leave the urbanized area and get into the woods, where it takes you about twenty minutes of gently sloping walking paths between vegetation and pieces of rubble (Trümmerberg, remember? 12 million cubic metres of rubble, coming from about 400 000 buildings) - until you finally reach the site of the old radio listening post.
Picture to the left is the view I was greeted with, the white structure is the main listening/radar dome. The white pieces of plastic you see used to close off the tower, but are now destroyed and continuously flap in the wind. The dome itself is still intact, more pictures of that later.

In the front you can make out a lamp post and the overgrown fence. The fence is in good condition - although it had been repaired numerous times. I suppose those repairs date from the time that the site was still deemed worth a damn or maybe even from the time it was actually in use (although I suppose it would have been guarded well and nobody would ever get close with a pair of heavy-duty threadpliers). Some parts of the fence were repaired with military-style razor wire, though.
Now however, the main gate is open so there is no need to climb or cut your way over or through.

As I entered the site I heard a couple of trashers throwing heavy stuff around and breaking glass on a higher floor and I didn't exactly want to run into them, so I left and walked around the fence, hoping there would be an entrance at the other side.
There was indeed, a hole in the fence large enough to crawl through. Some parts of the fence consist of two fences separated about 1.5 metres apart - I guess they were an area where dogs patrolled. Picture on the left shows the corridor I had to cross to get in. By this way I entered the site by the back side and so arrived right at the main dome building.
As you can see the Bing images are pretty old already, as the "wall" of the tower is still almost intact on those images.
Also check out this website, which has a short history lesson and a lot of pictures which seem to have been made soon after the decomissioning.

The location is heavily damaged and vandalized: not a single window surviving, lots of graffity, everything not too heavy thrown around and off floors, everything of value or interest stolen or destroyed - even some room that was burned out. All transportable metal was gone, fuse closets empty, copper cabling gone, ventilation systems gone... Professional looters with equipment and vans? Quite possible.
I suppose some of the structural damage (large piles of building material lying around as well) was made when the site was decomissioned, however. Maybe to prevent it from being used for anything, or simply to get large and heavy equipment out. Most of the buildings were still structurally sound, with most holes and dangerous areas marked or covered up. Still not a walk in the park however, keep your eyes and ears open.

I entered the building in search for a staircase to climb the main tower, which I found after a while in a dark room - stupidly I had left my flashlight at home, thinking sunlight would be enough. Reminder to self: buildings designed to be mainly lighted by artificial light are generally dark when there are no lights and electricity left...


The tower itself consists of about five floors on top of the three floors of the larger building it is standing on. There is an (out of order, off course) elevator at the centre and a staircase around it. Strong wind and the continous and loud flapping of the plastic sheets made it a pretty haunting place. See the top of the lift through the opened lift doors on the picture, electronic devices like the lift operation buttons been removed/stolen.








The four pictures above and at the left show, respectively:
-Northern view from the second floor of the main building. The big white building on front is the Olympic stadion (2 km), on the back you see the condensor tower of a power plant (Heizkraftwerk Reuter West, wikimapia ftw) at 4 km distance. The stubby look of the tower is because it is shorter than a normal cooling tower - airport close by.
-Southwest view from the main building
-View through the eastern dome on the main building, with the Fernseheturm visible (distance 7 km)
-View of the foot of the radar/antenna in one of the domes on the main building.

Lift Shaft and eastern View respectively.






Picture on the left shows the steel cables used as guardrails, although normally the side would have been closed with plastic sheet.












Picture on the way up, cables and tubes running from the top to the bottom.

Sight inside the main dome, which was still completely intact and made of hard sheets of plastic. Interesting sound echos inside, as any noise was reverberating inside. Maybe the shape and material of the dome was designed to trap waves in some way, thus helping to center radio waves for the antenna in the middle? Notice the size of the dome - the square hole of light is a normally sized door.

After this I descended and checked out the other building. By this time the trashers had disappeared and I met some other people as well: a young couple and even a family with a child, who had driven their car up the driveway to the main gate (there is a roadway too, off course).



















The vertical lines on the panorama look a bit weird, that's because of the stitching software having a hard time linking those. It is made from a floor of the main tower, in southeast direction. Some interesting landmarks to be seen there as well: next to the second vertical line from the left you see two of the three chimneys of the Kraftwerk Berlin-Wilmersdorf (about 5 km away). The three tall chimneys in the centre of the picture must be another powerplant, Kraftwerk Berlin-Lichterfelde (9.3 km). The large white building to the left most likely is Autobahnüberbauung Schlangenbader Straße, which is an apartment complex on top of a motorway. Germans have these funny, dry words: Autobahnüberbauung literally means "motorwayoverbuilding".

One last interesting link: there seems to be a pretty big movement aiming for the preservation of Teufelsberg as a historic landmark and as a monument to the last Cold War victim, Major Arthur D. Nicholson, who was shot by a Russian guard in 1985. I guess it must be quite painful for men who were possibly stationed for tens of years on this base to see it in a state like this, too.

Anyway, a very interesting experience, easy to reach and pretty safe, although it might be wise to visit it with two.
Strange how the destruction and vandalism added to the experience (nobody expects an Urban Exploration location to be in great shape and brand new), although I have nothing but contempt for the kind of lowlifes going there solely for the "enjoyment" of destroying things, or for the looters making a couple of euros by hauling pieces of steel and copper outside.

Btw, the wysiwyg editor for this blog is kind of ok, but utterly sucks when you want to have some decent image layout, and has no support for tables which would make it easier.

Weekend

Last weekend it was weekend indeed, "Weekend" also being the name of the place I visited friday night. It's a club located in an office skyscraper at Alexanderplatz, on one of the top floors. Great location as the club offers a 270 degree view over the west, north and east of the city, which includes Alexanderplatz itself and the Television Tower. Short waiting line, got in without a problem. Paying and cloak room is on the ground floor, after which you take the elevator to the club itself - the elevators operated by club personnel. The grainy and blurry picture to the left shows Alexanderplatz from out of the club.

Besides the view, the club is very nice as well with a minimalist but powerful room-length LED light system, big bar in the middle and lots of places to sit. Dance floor was very small though, capacity of the club isn't that much. On warmer days there is a roof terrace as well, which must be very nice.
Music was all right, but the location of the club attracts lots of upperclass tourists - posh dancing-in-circles-taking-pictures-of-each-other people all over the place, although most of them were gone at about 5 o'clock. Expensive drinks, 3.5 for a beer after paying 12 euro to get in is pretty sore. Toilet lady with voluntary tip, bottles of deodorant at the washtables were a nice touch.

Met a Berliner there with a bad case of ostalgie, who regretted the gentrification which takes over so many of the city's interesting spots and replaces them with soulless highrises. Ironically though, he is a civil engineer and actually aids with city planning - and so with its modernisation. Funny contrast but one which seems to be at the core of the evolution of the city: most people want it to stay the way it is but there seems to be an unstoppable move towards progression and renewal.
Picture on the left isn't mine, I got it from this flickr stream. It was probably taken in Prenzlauer berg, which now seems to be taken over by rich people from outside Berlin. Protest sometimes gets violent with stone-throwing and setting-fire-to-cars by left extremists.
This blog post addresses the megaspree demonstration, of which the poster hangs on the kitchen door of my apartment in Berlin.

Did I advance the gentrification of Berlin with spending my cash there and thus injecting foreign money into its economy and by visiting the typical once-underground-but-now-touristic places? I guess so. Sorry mister anarchist.

That friday I also sold my bike which I had placed on craigslist the week before (about five people interested). Funny thing is he was a Belgian as well, which allowed me to speak Dutch to somebody for the first time in almost a month. Nice person, lived in Friedrichshain since the beginning of this year. He regretted the lack of decent jobs in Berlin, saying that some helpdesk work earned him 8 euro bruto per hour - where I get 8 euro netto per hour cleaning dishes in Belgium...

Earlier I had visited Tacheles again, this time checking out some of the art shops in the main buildings. Some interesting stuff, ranging from people making clothes and jewelry over a shop full of tourist-ready but cool postcards and t-shirts over a sculptor of vaginas to some older artists (this being one of them) selling very nice paintings - and having a much cleaner working space as well - on the top floor. Many of the artists didn't allow to take pictures - or charged you for it - lots of other tourists walking around as well.
The building is squatted but is well organised and seems to have a central office, the Witte artist told me you have to apply and get allowed for a place in Tacheles and pay rent, but that it is the best place in Berlin to sell art.
Picture to the left comes from the Website of Witte and is called "Insel".

Even before Tacheles, I had visited Kunst-Werke, which is a gallery close by Tacheles. 6 euro, whic of course wasn't announced anywhere. The gallery exhibited work of Ceal Floyer. Most of it wasn't very interesting or nice, but the main piece was quite something. Check out the picture on the left: lots of equal-height columns with loudspeakers on top, each of them randomly playing short, loud sounds. Nice to walk through. On the same floor there was a dark room with a short bursts of light projected on a wall. The adaption of your eyes to the darkness allowed you to gradually make out more "fireworks".


Interesting gallery, although quite pricey for what it was.

Berlin.unlike

Another short post about a website which I found very interesting: berlin.unlike. It offers a lot of information which is slightly off the beaten track, with an excellent google map integration and indexing of events, places and "thrills" per city district. An extensive description and lots of pictures make it a very good starting point for a stay in Berlin. Shame they don't have it for Prague, where I am staying now for a couple of days at the flat of a friend.
Train from Berlin over Dresden to Prague was pretty nice, comfortable train. Dresden looks interesting as well and a heaven for urban exploration (more on that later), seems like at least 10% of the buildings we passed were empty.

Maria am Ostbahnhof

Last saturday - my last night in Berlin - I wanted to go to some place with decent music and crowd and preferrably not too far away, as I had to get my train to Prague (where I'm staying for a couple of days with a friend) on sunday at 2:30 pm. Kind of wanted to go to Berghain again, but the tought of having to wait an hour in the cold again put me off.
Maria am Ostbahnhof is, as the name would imply, located at the Ostbahnhof but at the southern side, whereas Berghain is located at the north. It's pretty nondescript, just an entrance in the fence between vegetation and a short path to the club itself. No waiting line and no door policy (although I was pretty early), 10 euro entrance.
Club itself is spacious and separated in two areas, one big main area and a smaller part, some nice decoration but nothing too special. Good lights and projection, though.
Toilet cleaner with voluntary tip burning incense in the toilets, which was nice :)

Music was pretty good, decent hard stuff and some interesting live acts, of wich KOMBINAT 100 was the best, mixing strong bass lines with gipsy-ish piano and piano-flute work - four people in total.
The club often has impressive lineups (pics on their myspace showing Justice, Ellen Allien, Beastie Boys and even Sting (wtf?? turns out he was an unnanounced "special guest")) and the place is well-known in Berlin, the name often shortened to Maria.
Crowd had some dodgy figures, but no incidents happened that I was aware of. Had a good time.

The first picture is one I made myself when leaving, suddenly recognising something. The image underneath is a screenshot out of... Berlin Calling :)

The S-bahn and Ostbahnhof were packed at about 1:30 am with young people going out, many of them carring beer or softdrink bottles. Some bewildered tourists with suitcases trying to get through.

Motor FM

Small post about the radio channel I tuned the radio on my apartment (which I am cleaning right now, leaving tomorrow...) to - Motor FM. Nothing groundbreaking but a good mix of the popular side of indie and alternative rock, and electro. Cool logo as well, Berlin sure does love its tower.
They manage to pronounce the english band and song names pretty well, it's funnier on French radio stations :-)

Berliner Philharmoniker

Last Friday I went to the Berliner Harmoniker for the concert of 8 pm. I don't know anything about classical music (except, of course, the utterly famous composers which are thought you in secondary school) but I do like it once in a while. And the Berliner Philharmoniker is a pretty famous concert hall as are the orchestra and the solo violin player of this evening, Janine Jansen. I had a pretty good place, which was at the backside of the orchestra but central and not too far away. The hall is very well designed though, and there isn't a single place where the view and music isn't excellent. That's why the cheapest ticket was 18 euro, as well. Despite the hefty price tag, the hall was packed, maybe five percent of the places were empty.

Not surprisingly, I was surrounded by other plain-clad tourists, while on the more expensive places in front of the orchestra one could spot gala dresses an lots of tuxedo black&white. Big bar at the entrance selling wine and champagne which I did want to check out, but the 5 euro price tag per glass quenched my thirst.

Funny detail: at the garderobe were big bowls of anti-cough pill samples and it was pretty strange to hear nobody making a noise when the orchestra was playing - until the break, when everybody coughed.

The music itself was exceptional with a great performance of the director and the violin soliste. I don't know anything about playing the violin, but the pieces she played did sound difficult enough, and she played it with much bravado. Shame though it lasted only for one hour and a quarter, only to be followed by a pretty ridiculous four or five return-rounds by the director and the soliste. The acoustics of the hall are great as well, the orchestra sounding like I was sitting right in front of it.

The music started with strings alone as the first piece was a string-only work, the rest of the orchestra together with the soliste came after the first break.

Berliner Philharmoniker
Daniel Harding Conductor
Janine Jansen Violin

Béla Bartók
Divertimento for string orchestra
Benjamin Britten
Violin Concerto
Richard Strauss
Death and Transfiguration

Tour 2 – From the Flak Towers to the Mounts of Debris

This afternoon at 13 o'clock I made my third and last Berliner Unterwelten tour, this time in the remains of the Flak Turm in Humboldthaim park, of which I wrote about in an earlier post.
The tour only explores a very small part of the building, which is the upper part of the northern part of the Turm.
There is another, more extensive ("Extrem") tour which explores a lot more and requires some decent climbing and flashlighting, but that tour is sold out for the rest of the year.

The tour of today explored the upper two levels, which were cleared of all the rubble and where stairs and railings have been restored or made. Some very impressive sights like deep stairwells (the building being 40 metres high, and we entering at top), enormous blocks of concrete thrown around by the force of the demolition explosions, huge concrete structures bent, moved, shifted - part of the wall actually moved outwards and is now a famous climbing wall on the outside. Lots of steel reinforcement visible as well, some rods at least 3 cm in diameter.
Loads of information about how the building was used and how it was built with many pictures. For some of the pictures on show in the tour and a lot of information (although in German), check out this article on the BU website.
Also check out the page on the Humboldthain-Extrem tour, which has some more pictures from deeper in the structure.

The guide was the same person as of the cold war bunker tour I took last week, and did a good job again, telling about the cleaning and restoration efforts in the flak tower as well.

The images are all property of Berliner Unterwelten again, as you are not allowed to take pictures inside. The last picture shows the pile of rubble which is beginning to form around the rest of the tower.

Funny detail: the tower is now a big wintersleep location for bats, so the tours are discontinued in the winter.