BERLIN, ICH LIEBE

Between 28^th of February and the 2^nd of March I went to Berlin and one of my days there was spent visiting the Bauhaus museum, located on Klingelhöferstrasse 14 D.

I had planned on visiting the museum and somehow I happened to come across it while exploring Charlottenburg, a huge part of the Berlin city centre. The sun was out, it was a crisp morning with bright sunlight shining upon the rainbow coloured pillars and the white minimalistic building. The museum lies just beside the river and huge willow trees grow around it. A sign in primary colours lead the way towards the forward thinking designers who begun with Walter Gropius.

Inside, you get to see the many expressions of the Bauhaus group, the textile, the architecture, the furniture, and the ceramics. It is quite a small museum, but there is still a rich exhibition to experience. I wanted every chair I saw. The design is so anonymous, and yet so special. The industrial steel frames, the hand woven fabric, the cool greys and the striking oranges. Because it is so simple and so ingenious you can picture the designs in your own home, you want it in your own home, and that makes it good design.

Some of the lead words of Bauhaus, like original, innovative, form and function, really comes through in their work. Mies van der Rohe and Vassily Kandinsky were ever-present in the rest of my Berlin tour. The exquisite national gallery with art from 1900 to 1945 is a giant, the scale of the building makes one feel infinitely small. The Kulturforum offers several museums, apart from those in the centre around Friedrichstrasse.

The general impression of Berlin is vastness, to walk the huge streets and stare in wonder at the towering buildings. New and old together, there always seems to be construction somewhere, to expand the already giant city.

I also visited Tascheles, which is an artist collective, on Oranienburgerstrasse 54-56a in a building that is close to crumbling. All around the older quarters have been destroyed, leaving a hollow for Tascheles to claim, with their barracks and tents and amazing metal sculptures. Inside, you climb the graffiti covered stairs to find some closed doors, but occasionally one is open, and you’re invited in to an artist studio. There’s much to discover, and the artists are keen to talk about their work.