Berlin Day 7

It's hard to believe that one week had passed already. Today was our last day in Berlin. Although there was still a lot we wanted to see, our day was far more low key than previous ones.

We decided on a cafe for breakfast since we had no milk for the coffee. It was very relaxing sitting at an outdoor table, sipping cappuccino and munching on fresh croissants. From there we decided to head out to the Brandenburg Gate that we only glanced at yesterday. The square is huge and full of tourists taking photos of themselves in front of the gate. Yesterday we rushed through the area to get to the Holocaust Memorial before our time with the guide was up. Today we took our time.

Pariser Platz 3 is a Frank Gehry building. It is elegant from the outside but certainly not iconic like some his other buildings. This is the DZ Bank and it is mostly used for conferences and galas. This area had suffered great damage due to bombing in the Second World War. There were stringent regulations about the appearance of the exterior in order to maintain the original plan of Berlin. Although Gehry was restrained in what he could do on the exterior, he had no limits inside the building. The lobby has an incredible glass dome in the centre. Some people see it as a whale. Beneath as if rising from the water, is an enormous brass sculpture that looks like a stylized clamshell giving birth to a pearl. I would have liked to see the work on all its sides, but visitors are only allowed the front view. It is awe-inspiring. I will post a picture when I can download from the camera.

The building beside it is the Academy of Arts. It also had to conform to the building restrictions, but the interior is open and airy with glass and metal stairways. At first we thought it might be the Gehry building, but although appealing, it lacked the wow factor one expects from Gehry. Each year, this institute has a poster completion that is displayed on the walls that soar over two stories high in the middle of the building. The designs were bold, restrained, powerful and very thought provoking and the topics ranged from a protest against female circumcision to concerns about the environment and the misuse of resources. The posters were published in a book, but the store was sold out of the ones that were on display. I did buy, however, the posters that were submitted for this year’s competition. They are just as mesmerizing.

The American embassy wraps around and beside these two buildings. No traffic is permitted on the street where the entrance and security patrols are highly visible. Posts are spread across the intersections on both ends of the street. Today there was a truck making deliveries. To allow for this to happen, it appears that two of those posts could be removed, but certainly not easily. I found it interesting that this grand embassy is in what used to be East Berlin.

We then returned to the Holocaust Memorial. We were hoping to go inside the underground display, but there was a line due to the great number of school groups moving through. An attendant suggested the line might be shorter later in the afternoon, so we took a lunch/bathroom break. By now, it was spitting rain and the line up seemed even longer so we made the decision to move on. Apparently the display is about the rise of Nazism and the fate of Jews, a theme that was very well handled in the Jewish Museum so we did not feel that we were missing something unique.

The Tiergarten, a park, is behind the Brandenburg Gate in what used to be West Berlin. While looking for the memorial to the homosexuals murdered by the Nazis, we came upon some interesting rock installations.. One group commemorated a visit by Putin, but most of them were a type of Stonehedge. On June 21, the light hits one large polished rock surface and lights up a circular formation at least a hundred meters away, hard to imagine on a grey day. This obviously was not the memorial. We did find it very close to the edge of the park. It is a huge grey concrete rectangle. On one end, there is a small window. Inside it, runs a loop of film showing gay people kissing in public and the negative reactions of passers by. It was interesting to gauge my own reaction. It was not as liberal as I had thought or hoped.

One museum we still wanted to see was the Bauhaus Archives. We thought it was close by so started walking. I must remember to check the scale of maps before deciding whether or not to walk. Distances on a map can be deceiving especially if you have to keep turning the map to understand which way to turn. Although it was somewhat tiring, I saw a new part of Berlin and found some unexpected sites. In one spot, there was a large poster about a victim of the T4 project during the last war. The poster was on the site of a home for the mentally disabled, now gone, and the fate of one of the residents named Anna. Euthanasia so widely discussed today was a policy used by the Nazis to rid society of 'extra mouths to feed'. These people were transported to 'new locations' in trucks that piped carbon dioxide into the passenger section. The Nazi interpretation of euthanasia is more pragmatic than the views we hold today, thank goodness.

The Bauhaus collection was amazing. It traced its origins from Gropius and showed the contributions of others who taught the movement through some of their artwork. For me, the most interesting part was the displays of household items In the Bauhaus design. There is a beauty in the removal of all extraneous ornamentation. The function itself is part of that beauty. So true about vases, glassware, teapots, dishes, serving pieces. Some of the items were for sale but I would have had to mortgage my house to be able to pay for them.

When we left, we decided to eat at the Sony Centre in Potsdamer Platz. It was there that we had been so impressed with the architecture. I was hoping to eat under the canopy. I don't know why Gila trusts me to do the navigating. I have executed more than one wrong turn during our travels. She repeats that it is a privilege not to have to lead and if there is a wrong turn we see greater parts of the city in the scenic rather than direct route. Finding Potsdamer Platz gave us another such opportunity. Taking a bus for a change, I advised against getting off at Potsdamer Strasse because I couldn't see the buildings I associated with the Platz. One stop later, I realized my mistake but advised that we not get off. Why? I don't know. When I saw the signs for a tram station we did get off with the idea of changing modes of transportation. In front of us stood a beautiful gate-like structure in red brick. The dates on it were 1839 and 1879.

There are memorials everywhere you turn in Berlin. There was a glass case with some sort of writing on it near that old gate. We thought it would give us some more information about the structure. Instead we found that it was a commemorative plaque. During the war, older Jews had been transported to Theriesenstadt from this particular station. They were ordered to arrive there for resettlement and differed from the other passengers only in that they had stars of David sewn onto their clothes. A chart showing the number of transports, the dates and the number of Jews transported was included as part of the display.

After walking around it and photographing the area we were prepared to find our original destination. As we walked away we saw a group on an English tour. We decided to hang around to eavesdrop. We learned that this had been the site of the Alter Bahnhof, a train station. It looked like the station had been bombed and the entrance was all that remained, but in fact, the station was superfluous once the area became a tram station. The mayor of Berlin decided that the station should be torn down. Perhaps he had some regrets, so he left the entrance standing. Inside the U Bahn station were large photographs of the way the neighbourhood looked in the early twentieth century. Fortuitous that we happened to get off the bus there!

It turned out that Potsdamer Platz was just a short walk away. It was dark by the time we arrived and the canopy which was glass and metal in the daylight glowed in red and blue at night. It looked like a parachute above us. The setting was more beautiful than the food, but Gila and I had the opportunity to review our week. This is what we learned:

We cannot see more than two sites in a day.

We did not get our money's worth out of the museum card. Better to pay individual fees.

Walking, you get a much better flavour of the city.

A private tour is best.

Gila whose purpose to visiting Berlin was the art has found that the Jewish history here is important to her.

The journey is more important than the destination.

Once back at the apartment, we packed, called for a taxi pick up at 4:00 am and went to bed early. There is too much to see and do in Berlin for a one week visit. I guess we'll have to come back to see the rest.