Berlin remembers, do we?

100 years on from the Weimar Republic, Berlin has much to remember. From Weimar to Third Reich to a divided city to the Fall of the Wall. Has any other city witnessed, experienced, suffered, and emerged from so much in such a relatively short time?

One woman immortalises the changes in a statue that is calling out for peace before the Brandenburg Gate.

The most significant remembrance surrounds the plight of Jews, in Berlin and across Europe. The Jewish Museum in the West Kreuzberg district is a Daniel Libeskind design, most disorientating in architecture, as its floors and walls disobey the builders spirit level. But its content is a creatively laid out history of Jewish faith, culture, and history.

For a particularly deep chill, spend a minute or two in the dark and claustrophobic Holocaust Tower

However, for heightened emotion the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe provides a space for reflection and imagination. The undulating topography accommodates a dense array of grey concrete pillars of differing heights…

Walk deep into the sculpture and be immersed in your own thoughts. Then visit the enclosed museum beneath the sculture for heartbreaking personal accounts of the effect of the Third Reich across Europe.

On the site of the former Gestapo Headquarters now stands an open air monument to the history of division in the city, running alongside a remaining fragment of the infamous Berlin Wall. Known as the Topography of Terror, it depicts the major changes of the last 100 years, and horrific consequences of those changes.

The division of the city is particularly well represented in the Friedrichshain district of old East Berlin. Here is the longest fragment of the former wall. At 1 mile in length it’s considered to be the world’s largest open air gallery. East Side Gallery is a feast of modern art. What better way to democratise a former harsh symbol of division…

Until we speak again, Berliners have shown a remarkable capacity to remember its tragic recent history with vibrancy and humour. 100 years on from the ugly emergence of the Nazi Party in Germany, is the rest of the world once again failing to learn the lessons of history?

With the Chief Narcissist of Dumbfuckistan in Washington buddying up to Psychopath One in the Kremlin, and the rise of populism in every western nation, we need the current day messages from Berlin more than ever before.

The Science of Brexit

Wanted: a space big enough to accommodate the volume of egregious lies and deceit continually perpetrated by the Farage, Johnson, Fox, Grayling, et al guano generating machine.

With additional accommodation for the persistent volume of fudge spewing forth from Corbyn World, alongside the incessant malfunctioning of a poorly programmed Maybot.

At last, a useful purpose can be found for the location in a recent underwhelming Box Brownie holiday snap taken by a bored adventurer on Black Hole Tours…

Black Hole

Until we speak again, the next great scientific challenge must surely be the discovery of the Trump brain cell.

Cardiff: Old & New

It’s a city felt by many local critics to have neglected so much of its history… bulldoze and re-build anew seems to be the fashion. Maybe the priorities of a few fat cats prevail, but Cardiff is Europe’s youngest capital city, and young needs to look shiny and new… doesn’t it?

Well, the city certainly needs to answer some questionable decisions regarding design and building priorities, and we can start by checking out the very locations where some of those answers may come from. Take the contrast between the domineering sight in the centre of the city located near to the castle, City Hall… Edwardian Baroque architecture opened in 1906, built of Portland Stone…

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Meanwhile, languishing on the banks of the elegantly ignored Bute East Dock lies a compressed pagoda of a structure in the form of the more modern County Hall… opened in 1988 it represents a less imposing style of civic building…

county hall

Until we speak again, Cardiff may be littered with bog-standard corporate design choices, but look a little closer and the gems can still be found amongst the guano!