Berlin: Creative City
Berlin, UNESCO City of Design, bubbles with innovation in the creative arts. We wander the city’s fast-transforming streets with a few of its style setters
words by Sally Howard
Sandra Siewert, whose
designs are inspired
by Berlin’s postwar
architecture
The world has always looked to Berlin – sometimes in horror, fascination or sympathy. Today, undoubtedly, Europe looks to the city as a trendsetter. Perhaps it’s the chance confluence of factors: airy studio spaces in the old east (bequeathed by the GDRs mammoth brutalist builds); affordable ground-rent in districts such as Friedrichschain and Prenzlauer Berg that enable the oddball notions of entrepreneurs (among them Laundromat cafés and honesty-box wine bars); a residual distrust of the homogenous mega-brands of capitalism.
Indeed, since the early euphoric days of reunification, Berlin has been a mecca for architects, artists, rebels and creatives from across the globe, scenting the possibility to rewrite the script, bubbling up with new and diverse subcultures. They’re transforming the grey melancholy of the GDR relics with a livid new palate: independent galleries, fine restaurants and sensuous new architecture that brings form to the functional cityscape of the old east.
Rosario Hurtado, one half of avant garde homewear and clothing design duo El Ultimo Grito, is a Madrileña by birth and one of the estimated 350 established designers who, over the past 18 years since reunification, have adopted Berlin as their home (one of the factors that led to UNESCO’s 2006 designation of Berlin as a City of Design). After 17 years living in London, Hurtado recently moved to the German capital with design and life partner Roberto Feo. “The spirit here is like that in London when the 100 per cent Design Fair first launched,” she says. “The idea that the big manufacturers don’t have to be in the picture. That people can get together and have crazy ideas, perhaps open a gallery. Artists don’t have to compromise and anything’s possible if you have space to think and act.”
Rosario lives in Prenzlauer Berg in the old north east, and gets around her neighbourhood by bicycle, as many of the locals do, picking up an ice-cream for her daughter from Kauf Dich Glücklich on Oderberger Strasse, drawing inspiration from the area’s individualism. The creative atmosphere “is helped a little because the city is broke,” she says. “So there’s a tacit agreement that businesses keep up the area of street in front of their shops. The different shrubs and trees, the battered retro furniture they put outside, they bring character.”
Sandra Siewert, an East Berlin-born graphics and fabric designer, understands that new Berlin design is very much a product of the old east. “The GDR was constructed around graphic symbols,” Siewert says. “Look atthe Fernsehturm (TV Tower). A powerfully simple symbol, visible across all parts of Berlin, it has been resolutely ignored by the West for many years. Now it’s a subcultural symbol and a statement of love for Berlin.”
Siewert, who has the Fernsehturm tattooed on her derrière, continues this tradition of punchy graphics in her S-Wert design brand, prints of urban symbols on canvas: suburban rooftops that could be gingham at first sight, Berlin street lamps resembling sprays of flowers (on sale at S-Wert, Brunnenstrasse 191, www.s-wert-design.de, and major Berlin design stores).
For designer-curator partnership Cynthia Carson, originally from New Zealand, and East Berliner Gernot Oper, the headlong creative rush that characterises modern Berlin has its roots in the possibilities offered by the clash of east and west. Their store, Redspective in Mitte (Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse 18, www.redspective.com) offers a forum for the artists of all of the ex-communist countries. “What’s remarkable is how little interest there was in these countries in the design trends of the West,” says Carson, “They knew the dialogue and still chose not to adopt it. There are many quirks too. In old East Germany, for example, there was a school of painters who worked only in green, founded because this was the colour that was readily available for industry. These attitudes live on.” Top local stars stocked at Redspective include the East Berlin artist Nepomuk, known for his uncompromising graphic style, and sketch artist Roland Brückner.
berlin: the designers’ favourite haunts
friseur kaiserschnitt / hair salon
Sandra Siewert says: “One of the funkiest operations in Friedrichschain. It’s a retro hairdresser that specialise in all the old hairdos: setting, perms and pin-curls – all that kind of thing. It’s a huge craze here.”
The vibe: Like a 1950s teen-dream boudoir, with hood driers and period furniture and sinks, swathes of girlie pastels and staff with rock ’n’ roll hairdos, Where Friedrichschain’s growing population of style mavens go to primp away their cares.
Wülischstrasse 34, Friedrichschain, +49 (0)30 2977 9007, www.friseur-kaiserschnitt.de
cupcake / cakeshop
Rosario Hurtado: “This is hilarious, the project of an American lady who’s trying to turn Berlin from its savoury cakes onto American cupcakes. The interior’s beautifully done though: a chandelier, vintage Coca-Cola machine, jars of old-style boiled sweets and the smiling owner behind her piles and piles of cupcakes.”
The vibe: Florida-born Dawn and her punk-loving Berlin partner serve up their treats to a keen crowd of locals. Favourites are Sweet Jane golden chocolate and vanilla, The King peanut butter and chocolate and Double Trouble chocolate, all topped with generous piped quaffs of buttercream.
Krossener Str. 12, Friedrichshain, +49 (0)30 2576 8687, www.cupcakeberlin.de
clärchen’s ballhaus / dancehall
Sarah Phillips, a British designer based near Berlin: “A 1920s dancehall that still does all the old waltzes, the interior’s pretty much unchanged. Fabulous.”
The vibe: The unreconstructed upstairs dancehall still wears the scars of wartime bombing, but its buckled mirrors and tattered cornices ooze macabre atmosphere. Downstairs is a riot of glitter curtains and 1920s table-dressing. Come for rockabilly nights, when Berlin’s cool couples let loose beneath the winking glitterball.
Auguststrasse 24, Mitte, +49 (0)30 282 9295, www.ballhaus.de
forumweinerei / wine bar
Rosario Hurtado: “I love this café-bar, they have a wine shop opposite. It’s a café by day, then at night you pay one euro for a wine glass, drink as much as you want, then pay what you think you owe.”
The vibe: Full-drape velvet curtains, battered floral sofas, baroque picture frames, wonky lamps, mismatched cushions and candelabras. Peopled by creatives sketching in notepads, or hunched over MacBooks, and young hippy mothers. Don’t miss the nut-rich daily health cake.
Veteranen Strasse, North Mitte, +49 (0)30 440 6983, www.weinerei.com
gorki park / café
Cynthia Carson: “It’s a little cheesy, but I love Gorki Park. Named after the Moscow park, it’s an old Russia-themed café with a kitsch décor and heavy German and Russian classics on the menu.”
The vibe: Sunburst mirrors, red tablecloths, communist propaganda posters and the atmosphere of an early-20th-century station waiting room create the perfect backdrop for hearty food. Warming dishes like wiener schnitzel keep students and starving designers well fed in the cold winter months.”
Weinbergsweg 25, North Mitte, +49 (0)30 448 7286, www.gorki-park.de
berlinomat / lifestyle store
Sandra Siewert: “This small independent department store is one of the best platforms for young Berlin designers, in a subversively uncool area.”
The vibe: The starting point for all things Berlin design, Berlinomat is situated in up-and-coming Friedrichschain, on the mighty ode to the GDR that is Frankfurter Allee. The store houses the work of 125 creative souls from Berlin – from fashion and jewellery, to furniture and product design. Look out for TOSH silver jewellery, concrete betonware bowls and the Paar Haende clothes label, a collaboration between young fashion design students and their tutors.
Frankfurter Allee 89, Friedrichschain, +49 30 4208 1445, www.berlinomat.com
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