Recently in cities Category

It was time for a change in scenery. I've decamped to Berlin, where I'm based for much of the summer. This is an opportunity to relax, enjoy the city and do some research at the Bauhaus and Luftwaffe archives. This base of operations enables side trips: to Reboot in Copenhagen last week (more on that and my talk soon), to my adopted sister's wedding at Schloß Moyland, to my German host family's apartment in Düsseldorf -- and also, to Paris and Hamburg for research and pleasure. Berlin isn't foreign to me, as most people know. I speak German fluently and have been in Berlin at least every year since 1990 (excepting 1992 and 1995), but never for more than a week or two at a time. This is a chance to live here for a little bit, just to see what it's like.

The weather in Berlin is warm and sunny, the city's full of crazy little bars, cafes and galleries that take advantage of the cheap rent and copious space. It's a place where things happen and converge, where people develop something wonderful in industrial place, only to have it be developed in glass and concrete by developers (whereupon they often go broke and don't complete the projects). So the cycles begin again. Berlin makes things feel possible -- it's like a platform for cool stuff. Consider the Investorenjubeln that happened yesterday: Bar25, one of the awesome urban, industrial beach bars decided to greet its latest crowd of developers this afternoon with a raucous beach party.

One of the things I love about Berlin is the fantastic network of people. My experiences with it started more than 10 years ago, when I came to know the MetaDesign Berlin office. I became friends with Vicky Tiegelkamp and Sabine Fischer, both of whom ran a pop culture feminist webzine not unlike Maxi, the one I had cofounded in 1997 with three other women. I am living with Vicky, who for 8 years has run Playframe with her partner, Patrick. My first love, Martin Nachbar, lives here this summer and may actually be in town: as a dancer and choreographer of note, he's usually on the go. Another friend, Lulu LaMer (a games producer) is based here for the summer; my dear friend David Hudson has lived here for decades. And there's the latest happy technology success story, Felix Petersen. He founded Plazes, newly acquired by Nokia.

Other people are attracted to it as a place to make things happen. Some examples: Constantin Peyfuss and Florian Weber are two of the founders of Unlike, a beautiful and very hip guide to the city (with a particularly nice iPhone interface).  Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlfross founded Soundcloud, a platform that professional musicians can use to share music. I've also just met the founders of Program, an architecture gallery that confronts that very notion. Its founders, Carson Chan and Fontini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga, graduated from Harvard's Graduate School of Design in 2005 and opened their gallery here in 2006. Next month, they'll be offering a residence to my dear friend Bryan Boyer. Perhaps I'll be here to see the fruits of the collaboration he's doing with his cousin.

On my leisure map: sunsets (at 10 p.m.!) at Kiki Blofeld, my favorite industrial beach bar, hipster free wifi and latte macchiato at Sankt Oberholz, the spiffy late night bars on my street in Prenzlauer Berg, my continued interrogations of the Palast der Republik, and time with the people I've mentioned, friendly visitors, and people I've not yet met. Oh yeah -- and expanding my knowledge of minimal techno: Anita says it encompasses everything. This should be easy enough. There's a party tomorrow, after a barbecue and an opening, and another party Friday.


Palast der Republik, masquerading as the Fun Palace

In the time that I've written this, Florian and Carson have each happened into Sankt Oberholz. This place is more connective than even San Francisco's Ritual! Berlin: a fine summer nexus.