ARCHITECTURE:
Today we just got a glimpse of several things that we'll be seeing fully later on. We're staying within the vicinity of several Embassies. They are generally somewhat architecturally interesting. We spent most of our time walking around the German Government Buildings. From what we've seen so far, and given Berlin's history, there is a lot of contrast between new and old. Alot of the heavy traveled European cities are full of old old buildings and churches. Since alot of Berlin's historic architecture has been destroyed in the wars, there has been a lot of reconstruction, rebuilding, renewing, and just starting over in some cases. So, being able to co
mpare Berlin to Paris and London, there is a whole period of architecture that is more prominent here than the others.
That being said, I'll just touch on some of my favorite buildings we've seen.
Fire/Police Station by Saue
rbruch and Hutton: This was a building that most tourists are not going to venture to (and that's why I love going on trips like this). T
his was a neat example of new versus old. I think this may be a common theme to alot of my photography ... trying to capture those connections b/w the two. The old fire station was a typical old red brick building while the new station was made of big colored glass panels. Where the glass was colored shades of red to indicate the fire station program, and the green panels covered the area of the building for the police station. The proportions of the glass panels signified (in my mind at least) this kind of old brick versus new brick; old and new construction methods.
Chancellery and Paul Lobe Huas: T
he Chancellery (below) is sort of an equivalent to our White House.
Its kind of weird to see really modern government buildings since all of the American government buildings and memorials are so c
lassical in nature. I did really like the Paul Lobe Haus however. The front is not super attractive (basically a big glass facade), but going along the sides becomes interesting. There are 8 courtyards throughout the building (4 on each side). So you walk along side a small chunk of building/ office space and then come up on a huge courtyard. This allows more of the offices (if not all of them) to have natural light and passive cooling. Each courtyard has a different landsca
pe installation... one being a maze! The back of the building was set up along the Spree River. This building connected via bridge with andther building (Marie E. Luders Building) across the river that is very "Louis Kahn-esque". That was a nice area along the river. This complex sits right next door to the Reichstag (parliament bldg). So, again seeing the new vs old.
Reichstag: We went to the top of this building. The dome was completely destroyed during the war, so instead of reconstructing a new dome to replicate the old one (like we do in America), Norman Foster designed a modern, "high tech" dome in its place. This dome, besides the Brandenburg Gate, is probably is probably one of the most iconic pieces of architecture in Berlin. I was really excited to get some really nice photographs of this structure! So, basically you ride an elevator to the top (thank goodness no stairs like notre dame or sacre coure in paris!) and then walk up a ramp that spirals around the dome. Inside the dome, is a funnel clad in angled mirrors. We had fun finding ourselves and taking pictures in the mirrors. The dome is all glass, so as your walking up you have great views of the city. We
plan to go back on our last day ... by then we'll know and will have been to all the places you can see from the dome!
CULTURE:
The first thing I noticed leaving the airport was the taxis. They drive Mercedes taxis! How cool is that?! That has been fun to see so many what we consider nice cars in America just driving all over the place. One thing we've had to adjust to is no AC. It has been pretty hot here, but is supposed to cool down over the weekend, so hopefully the no AC thing will only be a temporary adjustment. Being the architecture students that we are have been taking full advantage of any cross ventilation that we can get! The sun sets really late... like 9:30 (21:30 in German time) and then rises again at 4:30! We've had some trouble sleeping in till normal hours so far.
I haven't had just really good luck w/ the food yet here. Lunch was fine - i found a good baguette place in the train station we went to (Hauptbahnhof - the largest train station in Europe!). But dinner was another story. I tried something that i thought would be pork and cheese with some remoulade sauce. It sounded pretty good. But to my surprise, it came out in a small canister. small pieces of pork with some sort of congealed stuff around it. i decided to be brave, but then it was unexpectedly cold. It sort of tasted like left over Thanksgiving which wasn't awful but the texture just kind of did me in. So, Leah and Lindsay were kind enough to let me have a bite of their hot lamb and pork, and I just stuck to the potatoes. The potatoes are really good though!
Just some other cultural differences to take note of - They ride their bikes ALOT! Berlin is a very "green" city. They have recycle bins everywhere. You can also turn your empty bottles back in at different stores and get a deposit back. So, that's kind of neat. Berlin is definitely different from any city I've been to before, so i'm excited to explore more and know more about it!
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