The Berlin Wall was still slicing the city in half when Osman Kalin, a retired father of six from Anatolia, began eyeing up an unused plot of land from his apartment window in Kreuzberg. Covered in trash, the triangular plot officially belonged to the East, though it happened to lie on the Western side. After discovering there was no official owner, Kalin started to clear the trash and built – what else? – a garden.
For years, he cultivated onions, pumpkins, grapevines, and sunflowers directly under the shadow of the Wall, despite resistance from bureaucrats on both sides: at one point the East Berlin People’s Police (Volkspolizei) unceremoniously ‘decapitated’ his sunflowers when they threatened to grow too high. But his bountiful island of resistance grew, eventually encompassing a rickety shack ingeniously created from found materials and recycled furniture, which in some cases was – and still is – literally cemented to the street to prevent it from being carried away.
Today the little two-bedroom, two-story wooden house runs on electricity from a generator and boasts a veranda with views onto the striking St. Thomas Church, which officially owns the land and petitioned to allow Kalin to stay after the wall fell. No longer his main home, it remains a symbol of local innovation and lasting resilience. The adjacent garden, surrounded by chicken wire and dotted with old lawn furniture, wind chimes, and abandoned children’s toys, continues to bloom, and interested visitors are occasionally allowed a peek inside the house (try calling ahead on +49 (0)176 219 766 12). If you’re lucky, Osman’s son Mehmed may even take the time to give you a personalised tour of the complex, though do be careful not to tread on the cabbages.
Unfortunately this isn’t a working community garden, so don’t plan on bringing your pruners and marigolds. Right nearby, however, you’ll find the Gärten am Mariannenplatz / Ton Steine Gärten, a community-run urban agriculture project that may very well welcome your help if you call ahead and explain your intentions. PS
Intersection of Mariannenplatz and Bethaniendamm; S Ostbahnhof
[no image in epub file]
20
Kino International
MITTE
Opened in 1963, and built in the International Style that dominated the second phase of building on Karl-Marx-Allee (see p. 200), the Kino International served as the main theatre for premieres in East Germany, especially showcasing films produced by the state-owned film studio.
The building was designed by Josef Kaiser and Heinz Aust using a reinforced concrete frame construction with light sandstone façades; the rectangular glass-front façade itself resembles the maw of a vast screen. The building’s remaining three sides are closed, bearing reliefs that display a range of athletic, pastoral and industrial scenes.
The Kino’s very last GDR-era premiere, Heiner Carow’s Coming Out, was shown on 9th November, 1989, the day the Berlin Wall fell. Right up until then, the Kino served as a venue for the regime’s more prestigious apparatchiks to see and be seen. The theatre’s first eight rows, with their optimal views and extra legroom, were reserved for the Socialist party and national leadership. Before and after premieres, the pols and their state visitors reconnoitered in the ‘Representation Room’, with its buffed parquet floor, well-stocked bar, swanky mesh lamps, leather- and glass-topped tables and red-upholstered chairs.
The glass-fronted room, today called the Honecker Lounge after the GDR’s final head of state, enjoys a panoramic view, and one can easily feel transported back to the ’70s, especially with the colourful Plattenbauten, GDR hotspot Café Moskau and the Fernsehturm (TV Tower) looming large as life through the windows.
Though the present-day lounge, as well as the formerly grand lobby, have grown a little faded around the edges, the screening room has lost none of its grandeur. Sitting in one of the plush, royal-blue seats as the billowing curtains part to reveal the giant screen, visitors can still admire the acoustic-tiled walls and wave-like ceiling, which testify to the state-of-the-art viewing and listening experience enjoyed by the powerbrokers of a bygone regime. MR
Karl-Marx-Allee 33, 10178; U Schillingstr.
21
Museum Village Düppel
STEGLITZ
Berlin wears its 20th century scars so vividly that even unwitting visitors are confronted with reminders of war and division on a daily basis. Yet the city’s more extended history is often forgotten or ignored. One of the best places to decamp from the urban sprawl while discovering its medieval roots is the Düppel Museum Village.
A 20km trot in the direction of Wannsee brings you to an assembly of thatched cottages, storehouses, craft workshops, paddocks and gardens from the Middle Ages. All reconstructions, of course, but they’re built on the site of an actual 13th-century settlement (around 16 houses) that was excavated in 1967 and abandoned until the ’90s. A great deal of work has gone into filling in the gaps between now and eight hundred years ago, thanks to the ardent groups of volunteers and scientists who practice what is termed ‘experimental archaeology’.
In layman’s terms, this means that the museum has resurrected the old three-field crop rotation of the Middle Ages, discovering and cultivating old plant species and protecting domestic breeds like the Düppel pig, which the village has helped bring back from the brink of extinction. Associated buildings and rituals have been painstakingly researched too, drawing on remnants found at the original site.
The best time to visit, perhaps, is on a Sunday, when guided tours are available and the village ‘comes to life’ with volunteers dressed in cassock-like garments and offering presentations of handicraft techniques. Kids especially will love the opportunity to try out some wood-carving, pottery and waffle-making with antique equipment, as well as exploring the various houses, petting the pigs and sheep in the adjacent fields and playing with the historical games. There’s a gift shop and a simple stall selling sausages, cake and coffee. But an even better idea is to bring your own food and picnic blanket and spread yourself out beneath the generous shade of an apple tree...medieval style. PS
Clauertstr. 11, 14163; S Mexikoplatz, Bus 118, 622 to Clauertstr.; www.dueppel.de
Map: Overview C4
22
Maître Philippe
WILMERSDORF
Set on a slightly sleepy cobblestone street near the magnificent buildings surrounding West Berlin’s grand Ludwigkirchplatz, Maître Philippe draws visitors in with its sophisticated name and mouth-watering window displays – then socks them in the nostrils with the strong stench of cheese.
Perhaps this is simply a test: after all, the true bon vivant will know what good cheese smells like, and realise he’s stumbled upon a rare treasure trove. Once you’ve passed, the friendly proprietor (or his daughter) will guide you through the selections, perhaps showing off the comprehensive cooling system, which keeps the shop at a lightly air-conditioned temperature and sprays a constant fine mist of ionised water to create the right storage conditions for the ashy Selles-sur-Cher and creamy blue-green Roqueforts.
There’s more: aside from an array of cured meats and wines, the shop’s second room holds a veritable art gallery of stacked dry goods boxes, jars and tins