underappreciated amazements with Maisie

Hailing from London, Maisie has a fascination for all things Teutonic.  After finishing studies in art and architectural history with a specialisation in German cultural politics she worked as an assistant on the BBC's flagship radio news programme, Today.  These days she co-hosts an English-language Berlin-themed radio show.  How did you make the move from London to Berlin Maisie?

I first came as a student in 2000 to do my Erasmus year at the Free University. It completely blew me away. I spent the year on a real high. It's a total cliche to say it now, but it was very exciting, like nowhere else I'd been before and very different. So much space, dirt cheap, really a big playground for people with no money.  Coming from London, it was very refreshing to be somewhere where cash wasn't king. It felt pretty egalitarian. You could live pretty much anywhere in the former East, including the centre. It was very common for students to live in villas and huge, palatial apartments, albeit slightly run-down.  I had friends living on Kollwitzplatz, which is now Berlin's most expensive street, in 4 bed apartments by themselves.With coal heating of course.

In a lot of the East, there was obviously still a very strong post-communist feel- it was very bleak in many areas- and the parts of the former West which had been near the Wall- like east Kreuzberg- were quite edgy. The other thing that struck me was the space. So many vast empty spaces, especially in the area where the Wall had stood. They've mostly been filled in now. There were also a lot fewer people around. Hardly any expats, at least that I knew of. I remember being amazed to hear some American voices once at Brandenburg Gate, like: "What are THEY doing here???!!".  Berlin felt very free. There was a lot of spontaneity and parties in the most unusual places. It felt like anything was possible. Except making money or getting a well paid job. It made a massive impression on me. 

I finished my Erasmus year in 2001, then went on to do an MA, worked at the BBC for a bit, then came back permanently in 2005. 

Can you tell us a bit about your baby, Radio Spätkauf.  How has your experience been, going into spätis and asking to record introductions?  Any stories to share?

Radio Spätkauf is a joint effort between me and my journalist friend Joel and an artist called Andrew. It's a kind of news and culture show for Berlin, trying to keep people in touch with what's going on here on a local level. 

Most of the Späti owners have been very obliging and nice, although I must admit, Joel was the one asking them. We once found this really feisty Thai woman running a Späti out in a shed in Grünau in the former east. But she was so scary, I couldn't bring myself to ask her. I regret that, because she'd probably have been very entertaining!

There is a lot of frustration and talk about Berlin's hyper gentrification these days.  Do you see Berlin going in the direction of London, or do you think there is hope for us here?

 

Berlin has changed a lot over the past 8 years or so, but I don't think it's going to be turning into London in the immediate future. London has been gentrifying slowly for decades. Plus the poverty gap is and has always been much greater there. The Germans are more, dare I say it, 'socialist' in their outlook, even the Christian Democrats, with regards to welfare, housing, etc.  Social & economic inequality don't seem to be quite as pronounced here, although I can see things changing.  That said, although they are gradually being legislated, tenants, for example, have a lot more rights and protection from ruthless landlords than they do in the UK. Random rent hikes and evictions are much harder to enforce.  That said, we shouldn't relativize the situation too much: there is now a big deficit in affordable housing in Berlin. Poor people are being forced out of the centre, kicked out of the areas they grew up in. I hope that the city government starts building more social housing and does more to protect people on lower incomes. The property & rental price hikes in Berlin have made them really vulnerable. Affordability is a large part of Berlin's appeal. If it loses that, it's lost much of what makes it such an interesting and attractive city.

We at Insider know your great love for East Berlin architecture.  Why is this style so close to your heart, is it purely aesthetics?  Can you choose one favourite Berlin building to tell us a bit about.

Komplex Leipzigerstrasse, a series of tower blocks designed by Werner Strassenmeier and the Joachim Näther collective, which were built from 1969 onwards.

I think for me it's about aesthetics, but also what it represents.  The GDR ceased to exist a year after the Wall fell, but one of its legacies- architecture- has taken a lot longer to go.  Architecture was such a strong part of GDR visual culture. Buildings and the accompanying deco or public art- murals, mosaics, sculptures-  were supposed to reflect the ideals of the state- built socialism, if you like.  But if you take it out of its context, much of it is not explicitly political. Apart from the Stalinist stuff from the 50s, like Karl Marx Allee, or the big housing projects, it is not especially 'communist'.  A lot of public buildings from the 60s and 70s, like Ulrich Müther's structures, really just reflect international building trends of that time. They seem pretty space-age and futuristic. The same applies to a lot of GDR public art. It's so utopian and stylised- like the one by Walter Womacka on the Haus des Lehrers on Alexanderplatz, but some of it could come from Britain in the 70s.

I can also get interested in a bit of GDR architecture or deco, that might even be really ugly,  purely because of what it represents. Since I moved here in 2000, a lot of stuff has been demolished, for various reasons. It's on it's way out, it's ephemeral, unlike say, the Reichstag. I think that adds to its appeal. You never know whether something will be pulled down the next week or not. 

That's what my blog GDR design https://gdrdesign.wordpress.com/ is about. It's not trying to idealise the GDR or put a positive spin on anything, it just tries to document all these quirky structures or bits of public art which have survived communism but won't be around for much longer. 

Walter Womacka’s mural ‘Der Mensch dass Mass alle Dinge’ (Man, the measure of all things) removed from the side of the Ministerium für Bauwesen in Breite Strasse prior to demolition in 2011.

My favourite East German building is probably the former State Council building on Schlossplatz, behind the new city palace. It's 1960s representative architecture and they spent a lot of money on it, so it's got that 'people's palace' vibe about it. It now belongs to a very expensive business school, ironically. But it's been renovated, and they did a good job. It's essentially been done up, but has kept its original character, like the TV tower. There's a huge stained glass window in the entrance hall, again by Womacka, THE state artist in the GDR. Worth a look if you're in the area.

Womacka stained glass, former State Council

Thanks for opening our eyes to all the architectural treasures we have hidden amidst Berlin!

through time and space with JJ

JJ, a native of Cork City, Ireland, arrived in Berlin armed with a curiosity about curry-wurst and an MBS in politics and history. A self confessed Berlin addict, John infuses his tours with his intense passion for German history and culture, while employing his inimitable brand of humour to weave the story of Berlin in the great Irish tradition.  How and when did you first come to this city JJ?

I first visited Berlin in the late autumn of 2006, a callow and impressionable youth searching for the city of his dreams. Being an aficionado of David Bowie’s work (he recorded some of his finestwork in the city) I expected to love the city, but I wasn’t ready for the overwhelming experience. I wish I could tell you more about the visit but I literally wandered around in a dream like state, stumbling from one historic location to another, allowing the years of history to wash over me. It sounds so ridiculous now, but visiting Berlin was like a pilgrimage for me, just to follow in the footsteps of Max Liebermann, Mies van der Rohe, and Fritz Lang was a thrill. I have vague memories of seeing the Pergamon Altar and buying an Ampelmann mug, but beyond that it’s more a feeling than a specific set of memories. My experiences must have been positive because I jumped at the chance to move here in May of 2011. I was presented with an impossibly long list of cities by a university professor who insisted that I needed some experience “in the field”. I dutifully narrowed the list down to Berlin and Stockholm, but in reality there was only one real contender. This is where my Berlin odyssey truly began and when my turbulent love affair with the city started. Like any relationship we go through peaks and troughs together but the romance continues to blossom.

With your masters in politics, can you discuss a bit about Berlin's uniqueness in terms of a capitol city.

From an academic point of view I could coldly and rationally put forward any number of completely valid arguments for why Berlin is unique amongst European capitals. From the geopolitical point of view I would be sympathetic to Otto von Bismarck’s opinion that Berlin’s position at the crossroads of the continent has had an enduring impact. We could also look at Berlin’s unusual and sometimes difficult journey to becoming the capital of the German Empire at the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Then we arrive at the 20^th century, where we have the destruction and rebirth of the city and the small matter of the Wall. West Berlin became a refuge for young German men and women escaping the stuffy atmosphere of post-war West Germany, a safe haven from military service, and an oasis for artists from allover the globe. Finally we arrive at the post-Wall era, something we are still coming to terms with. The spectacular collision of east and west and the relatively smooth transition to a united Berlin contribute an enormous amount to the city uniqueness.

Beyond the academic analysis we have to appreciate another less tangible factor. Berlin has something special, an almost mystical quality that sets it apart from the rest. The city is like a mirror that reflects the dreams of the people who live here, although it has reflected its fair share of nightmares too. When I first arrived in Berlin I met an incredible man at a language exchange who was supposed to be helping me to improve my German but ending up regaling me with stories from his experiences in Berlin over the course of 40 years. He told that the only constant in Berlin’s is change – the city constantly renews itself; expecting Berlin to stand still is akin to standing on the shore line as the tide advances and screaming at it to turn back. Change is Berlin’s most enduring and alluring quality, and adds much to its unique character.

You're a street art fan.  Did this grow out of living in Berlin?  Do you have a favourite local street artist, or location to find new pieces?

Simply put, Berlin and street art are a match made in heaven. Before arriving in Berlin I would have been quite dubious about the artistic merits of street art, but I quickly learned to love the micro-galleries that populate Berlin’s doorways and alleys. Street art’s raison d'être is its temporary nature and Berlin’s street artists have embraced the mediums fleeting lifespan. Whether it’s a wall-sized mural, a poster, or a piece of graffiti, street art fits perfectly with Berlin’s chameleon spirit. When the wall fell, vast swathes of the relatively underdeveloped east were opened to eager artists searching for wall space. When you add the laissez faire attitude to graffiti in the former western neighbourhoods of Kreuzberg and Neukoelln, you have a city that is too tempting for the world’s most prominent artists to ignore.  

Street art (in the loosest sense) is not a recent phenomenon in the city; in fact Berlin’s first street artist was probably Ernst Ludwig Kirchner who painted pictures of the city’s streets rather than putting paint on the city’s streets. Kirchner was one of the key figures of the Die Brueke movement and his “Großstadtbilder” series documented the city’s bustling neighbourhoods during an audacious age – for example his viciously angular painting of Nollendorf Platz in 1912 for example captures the chaos perfectly.

Nolllendorf Platz, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1912

Today Berlin’s street art crews, such as 1UP (One United Power) and the precocious UberFresh Crew (often stylised as ÜF) have dragged the street art phenomenon into previously uncharted territory. They carry out their unique vision for Berlin’s streets with a political undercurrent and a dose of renegade ferocity. Whether it’s entertaining or humorous, thought provoking or disposable, street art has become interwoven into the DNA of the city.

Naturally Warschauer Strasse, Schlesisches Tor, Gorlitzer Bahnhof and the nearby streets are essential destinations for anybody looking for an introduction to the variety of art on Berlin’s streets. Space is at a premium and each and every door way artists clambering playfully for a place for expression. Mitte is also a well established area for street artists, particularly Haus Schwarzenberg near Hackescher Markt. Here you can find some of Berlin’s most respected artists displaying their work within a few square meters of each other. In the city we have some incredible pieces by internationally renowned artists, but my personal favourites are the ones I associate most with Berlin. Take for example the tiny cork figures striking theatrical yoga poses that adorn the city’slampposts and street signs, or the eccentric sixes that crop up in increasingly bizarre locations. There are two Berlin based artists that work under the name Various & Gould who have created a series titled “Sankt Nimmerlein” which is a big favourite of mine. The poster series sought to create ten modern saints for modern day problems that are based on the “Fourteen Holy Helpers” of the 2^nd and 3^rd century. The posters, which are dotted around the city, mix the surreal with biting social commentary; truly art to get excited about. Of course I have to mention one of Berlin’s most prolific artists El Bocho; even those with a passing interest in street art are familiar with his “Little Lucy” posters, where the aforementioned Lucy is seen to torture her long suffering kitty in ever more outlandish and stomach churning ways. 


Do you make any form of art yourself?

There’s a good reason why you’ve never heard of my art. It could be that like all the best street artists I guard my privacy obsessively, or it could just be that I realised at an early age that my abstract expressionist knock-offs were pedestrian at best. I’ll let you decide!

As we enter the depths of the Berlin winter, do you have any tactics for surviving these long grey months?

When I experienced my first Berlin winter a few years ago, I just hibernated in a warm room and waited for the winter to pass. “How long can the cold weather last?” - I asked myself with an almost childlike innocence. Cue to four months later, with the snow continuing to fall and the temperatures plummeting, I was close to breaking point. The next winter I was inspired by the older generation of Berliners to ignore the bleak weather and carry on as though this was merely a mild inconvenience. Many times I have watched in admiration as they huddle together in the doorway of a train station, before clutching their shopping bags tight and gritting their teeth, they stride with steely determination against the cruel Siberian winds. These people are made of tougher stuff. For the last couple of years I have chosen winter as a season for exploring the city. Too often I get locked in my own “kiez” mentality, so it’s a pleasure to discover some hidden gems. These quests to pastures new often begin with looking at the city map and picking a train station at random. This city is full of surprises; I recently discovered a fantastic Viennese café in Dahlem!

We shall follow your cue and take to the streets, thanks JJ!

East of West Berlin, with Roy

Roy, hailing from just outside of London, has been working his way up to calling Berlin home for over a decade now.  His passion for history and language permeate his work, studies and hobbies, and quite naturally his thoughtful answers to my questions. 
 

How did you come to be living in Berlin?
 
I first came here on a school trip when I was 14, then again at 17 to do an internship at the German parliament. I was brought up with the image of Berlin from Len Deighton and John le Carre novels; an island of spies wearing trench coats and dropping secret packages in dustbins. The Berlin of Potsdamer Platz and the Sony Center was a bit of a shock! I also remember visiting the Allied Museum in the southwesten District of Dahlem, and seeing one of only four remaining Handley Page Hastings on the museum forecourt. 

The HP Hastings was one of the types of aircraft used to transport supplies into Berlin during the 1948 blockade. I was raised just outside London, next to where Handley Page had their factory until they went bust in 1970, so that was for me a very personal connection to the city. Unfortunately the plane has lost some of its lustre since my uncle - the current Chairman of the Handley Page Association, a network of HP enthusiasts and former employees - did some research and discovered the plane at the Allied Museum was actually not used during the Airlift at all!

(The HP Hastings TG503. This photo was taken in 1948 at the Radlett Aerodrome [Herts, UK] where the planes were built. (C) Handley Page Association.)

Berlin changes fast, and I tend to have my socks knocked off each time I happen upon a corner of the city which has been spruced up or knocked down.  The more I ask our guides about this topic the more I realize how pragmatic they are about the (non)issue...  

Every time I came before settling here, there was something replaced or dismantled that had been removed (most notably the Palast der Republik, the GDR cultural center and parliament building riddled with asbestos that was taken down in 2008), but I can't think of anything I would mourn. I think Berlin is what it is because it adapts quickly to the time in which it finds itself, for better and for worse.

You live in what some Berliners would consider 'the deep East' and I remember a great photo series you posted of a day's exploration through Hohenschönhausen.  Do you have an affinity for the atmosphere of former East Berlin?

I don't love East Berlin for what it was, but for what it has become. Berlin is situated in old Slavic marshland, on the cusp of what people have spent centuries trying to define as "East" and "West". In the 1990s millions of Russians of Jewish and German heritage settled in Germany to escape the chaos of the Yeltsin years, and they have made this part of the city their home. Round the corner from where I live, on the border between the eastern districts of Friedrichshain and Lichtenberg, there is a fantastic Russian supermarket that offers a taste of home for anyone who needs it.

The high-rise apartments of Hohenschönhausen and Marzahn/Hellersdorf may not conform to the "Altbau", graffitied image many people understandably fall in love with when they arrive in Berlin, but a lot of people have found a home and quality of life in these unloved areas that suits them. The "deep" eastern district of Marzahn for example was a farming village until the late 1970s, when the government chose the area for a new housing complex that would help counteract Berlin's housing crisis. In the Marzahn district museum there is a series of archive news reports of milestones reached, such as the district mayor handing over the keys of an apartment to the thousandth family to move there, who smile awkwardly for the camera unsure of how to behave. There's even a film of Gorbachev visiting in 1987 making awkward small talk through his translator and playing football with a group of children!

What I like most about Marzahn though is the utopian vision it hints at. I come from just outside London, where after WWII thousands moved out of crowded inner-city slums into modern, spacious "New Towns" with local jobs and a better quality of life. Today those new towns are regarded as something of a joke, while the crowded slums are upmarket apartments or office space for start-ups. Marzahn isn't paradise, but at least they tried.

You speak English, German and Polish.  Any other languages in there?  What is on the horizon linguistically for you?

I learned German at school, and have to study in it, so that's my main foreign language. Part of my MA involves learning a new language, so I chose to take Polish classes. I had always wanted to learn Polish, as I grew up during the time when thousands of Poles were migrating to Britain. It's very hard to start learning Polish, but it is never boring and it is such a gorgeous language to listen to! Issues of identity and nationality fascinate me, and Poland has a notoriously flexible border. In fact, its national poem, Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz, begins with the line "Oh Lithuania my fatherland, you are like health!"

Russian is more of a hobby. I couldn't speak it, but I can understand random bits and pieces, and reading the Cyrillic alphabet has its advantages. I have a copy of The Adventures of Buratino - Alexei Tolstoy's Russian-language retelling of Pinocchio - that I am going through with a grammar book and a dictionary. Some people sit with a crossword of an evening, I do silly things like that! I like to play with languages, listen to the sounds they make. I think it was Goethe who said that you need to learn other languages in order to understand your own. Languages aren't just there to be used as tools for ordering a beer or laying down a business deal; they are living, breathing expressions of a whole different way of looking at the world. 

Tell us a bit about what you are currently working on for your studies.  You recently received a DAAD scholarship, where will this bring you?

I'm studying at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt an der Oder (not THAT Frankfurt!) for an MA in European Studies, which is an interdisciplinary course encompassing modules in Law, Economics, Culture, and Politics. I focus on culture, in particular on issues relating to Poland and Belarus and their mutual interaction. They have a joint past, but Poland is now the EU's 'star pupil' while Belarus is a dictatorship in all but name.

The scholarship comes with a monetary prize, so I'm hoping to go to the East of Poland next year to practice my Polish and explore the Belovezhkaya Puscha, the oldest forest in Europe and the last home of the European Bison. The region borders Belarus and is a real East/West crossing point - in fact, it was there that the USSR was officially dissolved by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Our guests might be familiar with the region's most famous international export - Zubrowka Bison Grass Vodka!
It seems you have a love for many things Slavic and also country western music.  Do you see any overlap here.  Have you found any real gems for country western in Berlin, or Eastern Europe in terms of venues or festivals?

The spirit of freedom and release that country and western music embodies has made it popular in

Eastern Europe for decades. In the sixties, there was a thriving genre of Polish western films set in Silesia, a region they considered their own "wild west" after it was ceded to Poland from Germany in 1945. That's not to mention the famous Solidarity poster in June 1989 featuring Gary Cooper from High Noon! Country music has always represented the experience of everyday life. I always make a point on my Cold War tour of reciting the lyrics to Red Sovine's classic song "East of West Berlin", a song that indicated just how important the Berlin situation had become by the early 1960s - just as important to country singer-songwriters as tractors, whiskey​,​ and ex-partners!  

My top tip for country music in Berlin is the American Western Saloon in the northwestern district of Reinickendorf, a few minutes away from the Wittenau U-Bahn station. They have regular linedancing courses, and live music every Friday and Saturday night from some of Europe's top country acts. If you are here next February, they also organize the Country Music Meeting, one of mainland Europe's biggest country festivals with performers coming from as far afield as the Netherlands, Poland, Denmark, and of course the US of A itself!

Thanks Roy, as an American who grew up listening to Dolly and Patsy, you have yourself a date!