Arc h i t e c t u r e • Parks • Museums • Plac es To Eat • Sho ps
10 0 favou r i t e pl ace s
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Slow Tr av el B er l i n
100 Favo u r it e Pl ac es
Editors Giulia Pines, Marian Ryan, Paul Sullivan
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50 St. Agne s K i rche & K unstgal e r i e K REU ZBERG The St. Agnes Kirche has undergone several metamorphoses since its genesis in 1925. Destroyed during WWII, it was given a second life during the city’s post-war revitalisation effort. Though it took more than two decades for its resurrection as church and community centre to be realised, the plans were decisively carried out in the ’60s by the architect and head of West Berlin city planning Werner Düttman, who was also responsible for the Akademie der Künst and for commissioning Mies van der Rohe to build the Neue Nationalgalerie. One of the finest local exemplars of Brutalist architecture – a movement often viewed as cold, even totalitarian – the complex was initially criticised for its harsh rectangular lines and blinkered, bunker-like exterior. Even today, its strict composition and apparent impermeability can seem forbidding; yet these features can be seen as consonant with Berlin’s history, as well as with the uncompromising yet ultimately vulnerable St. Agnes herself. After Catholic services ceased to be held here in 2004, the building’s fate was unclear until 2012, when gallerist Johann König leased the space – along with the associated former community centre, sacristy, rectory and a daycare centre – and transformed it into a contemporary art centre with an exhibition space, studios and artist residencies. A recent renovation led by Arno Brandlhuber has already resulted in many of the complex’s units being rented out to various local businesses (Robertneun architects, Praxes curatorial office and showroom and Anja Lutz Book design, among others). Though König’s gallery, located inside the main church, isn’t officially slated to open until 2014, temporary exhibitions and events sometimes allow visitor access. Inside, shadows gather and shift, yet the two darkened side wings flank a central nave that whispers neutrality and openness. In the front of the complex, a free-standing campanile extends to the sky, with stairs and a final ladder awarding roof access and a panoramic view to those daring enough to reach up. JS
Alexandrinenstr.118-121, 10969; U Prinzenstr. Map: Mitte/North D4 107
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70 Schwerbelastungskörper Sc hö neberg
Berlin’s high water table is put forward as an explanation for any number of the city’s features. The old breweries, for example, are clustered around Prenzlauer Berg and Kreuzberg because they needed higher ground for deep cellars, and the elevated pink pipes you see near construction sites are actually diverting the groundwater. Another, less well-known but equally eccentric Berlin structure owes its existence to the city’s abnormal aquatic altitude. The Schwerbelastungskörper, or ‘heavy loading body’, is an enormous cylindrical lump of cracked concrete located next to the S-Bahn tracks just south of where Kolonnenstrasse meets Dudenstrasse on the Schöneberg-Neukölln border. During the Third Reich, Hitler commissioned his chief architect, Albert Speer, to recreate Berlin as Welthauptstadt Germania – the capital of the world, replete with monumental structures, including a triumphal arch of gargantuan scale. But could the city’s swampy, sandy, unstable ground support such maniacal designs? In 1941, Speer ordered the construction of the Schwerbelastungskörper to find out. His engineers decreed that if it sank more than six centimetres in two years, the ground was unfit to build on. In two and a half years, the Schwerbelastungskörper had sunk almost 20 centimetres, but Hitler was determined to go ahead with his plans, until the course of the war turned and brought an end to them. After the war, the proximity of neighbouring apartment houses made it impossible to use explosives to destroy the mammoth structure. Weighing more than 12.5 tonnes, 21 metres across and more than 18 metres high, the Schwerbelastungskörper’s sheer bulk remains breathtaking. Visitors today can climb a new observation tower to take in aerial views, as well as exploring the periphery of the structure, where everyday objects like old cabinets and mechanical equipment lie rusting against the underside of the monolith. A listed building since 1995, it is one of the last standing pieces of Nazi urban planning, a hulking reminder of hubristic political folly. NH
General-Pape-Str., 12101; S Julius-Leber-Brücke Map: Mitte/North D4 147
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a co mpa n i o n g uide For exploring berlin slow ly
Less a conventional guidebook than a charming companion, our book is aimed at both visitors and locals. Written by long-term residents with expansive knowledge it resists dividing cities into their commercial components in favour of a “less is more” approach. Inside you’ll find 100 places spanning the quirky, the small and the time-honoured. We hope you’ll enjoy our Favourite Places as much as we do.