Auch in diesem Jahr gab es wieder einzigartige Illuminationen und kunstvolle Projektionen auf berühmten Berliner Wahrzeichen und an Orten wie dem Brandenburger Tor, dem Berliner Dom und der Straße “Unter den Linden”. Die Lichtspektakel ziehen sich wie ein magisches Lichterband durch die gesamte Berliner Innenstadt.Hier einige 360° Panorama-Impressionen:
Berliner Hauptbahnhof
Unter den Linden
Berliner Fenrsehturm
Gendarmenmarkt
Berliner Dom
Brandenburger Tor

sei lichtpoet, sei wortathlet, sei berlin - Auch das hauptstadtstudio ließ  es sich nicht nehmen die diesjährige Ausgabe des aufwendig inszenierten “Festival of Lights”  am letzten Veranstaltungstag zu besuchen.

Fotos:  Bernard Bruck

Berlin setzte auch in diesem Jahr wieder spektakuläre leuchtende Akzente. Vom 14. bis 25. Oktober 2009 erstrahlte die Hauptstadt erneut in ganz besonderem Licht. Für zwei Wochen verwandelte das FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS™ die Metropole in eine glitzernde, farbenprächtige Stadt.

Einzigartige Illuminationen und kunstvolle Projektionen auf mehr als 40 berühmten Berliner Wahrzeichen und Orten wie Brandenburger Tor, Siegessäule und Hotel Adlon Kempinski zogen vom Fernsehturm bis hin zum Funkturm ein magisches Lichterband durch die gesamte Stadt.

Auch wir haben eine kleine Fototour gemacht. Eine Auswahl der Bilder von toto möchte ich euch nun vorstellen:

weitere Bilder

(Textquelle: berlin.de, Photos by toto)

]]> http://xiaoi.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/berlin-part-3/ Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:46:45 +0000 Xiaoi http://xiaoi.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/berlin-part-3/

Nach vier Tagen Hauptstadt sind wir gestern nachts wohlbehütet aber doch ziemlich müde wieder in Süden Deutschlands zurückgekehrt. Es waren echt erlebnisreiche Tage. Montag haben wir die Mittagspause dazu genutzt, die Gegend um der Geschäftsstelle in Alt-Berlin zu erkunden. U.a. waren wir zu Fuß unterwegs am Rotes Rathaus, durch dasNikolaiviertel, vorbei am Spreeufer Nähe Berliner Dom und Museumsinsel. Nach der Arbeit waren wir dann beim Inder dinieren und ließen dann den Abend gemütlich bei einem Glas Rotwein in einer sehr “familären” Berliner Bar ausklinken. Dienstag verbrachten wir die meiste Zeit in Kreuzberg, welches seinen Ruf als neues Hype-Viertel sehr gerecht wird.  Fast schon gegen Abend machten wir uns erst auf Richtung Süden, aber nicht ohne voher nochmal per Auto einige der bekannten Sehenswürdigkeiten Berlins abzufahren wie der Berliner Zoo und die Gedächtniskirche. Für mehr als “Drive-By-Shooting” hat es dann aber nicht mehr gereicht

Hab versucht soviele Eindrücke wie möglich in Bilder festzuhalten.

Most beautiful cathedral I’ve ever seen.

Which kinda made me miss feeling the peace and tranquility of being inside a sanctuary, of worshipping, of listening and just being in silence and solitude…

The sky, as Sam frequently pointed out to me, was the bluest blue I had ever seen. There is no other way to describe it. Every day, the sky looked as if it were filled in on Microsoft Paint. A deep, flat, unwavering blue. The buildings were often so equally pristine and deep in color, despite having a certain age, the world started feeling simulated in its absolute postcard perfection. Like a world made of Legos. Certain colors are so startlingly clear, so bright, almost blinding – that there is something of an acid flashback painted across the city’s façade. My first thought for anyone intending to go there: Before you do anything else, look up at that sky.

My Berlin adventure began when a shaggy blond with wide glossy blue eyes and an Adidas obsession sat next to me on the plane and taught me how to shape the guttural sounds of the names of train stations in my mouth. He bought me a ticket and set me on the S-bahn away from the long walkway out of the Schoenefeld Airport -  the name translates to  “Beauty Field.” I find it interesting that a tiny spot covered in asphalt where giant tubes of aluminum and steel is graced with such a name. I found over time that Germans treat their spaces with a degree of sweetness and personal investment I’ve seen in few other cities or cultures.

 Having landed rather late at night, I was concerned about the safety of the trains but found them well lit, well organized, and full of crusty drunk Italian Communists taking pictures and being lewd. (Go figure. It doesn’t matter where you go.) I also discovered very quickly that everyone below forty or so speaks perfect English. The accent is always distinctly British or distinctly American, but there’s no real explanation as to why.

“Do you speak English?” I asked several people through my time there, usually in hopes of getting directions. Either the disposition immediately darkened, followed by a rough dismissal and a broken “Only German!” as if to tell me, “No, I don’t speak English, you arrogant American jerk,” or they’d look at me as if I were insane and say slowly, “Yeaah…” as if I had asked them whether or not the sky were blue. Sam tells me that the Berliner attitude toward Americans is either bitchy judgment, or great fascination, but usually nothing in between.

Berliner Dom

In two and half days, Sam and I managed to pack my trip with all the essentials of a Berlin visit. We went up into the Berliner Dom, on Museum Island, and found ourselves popping in and out of narrow stairwells and climbing endless winding staircases to end up looking over a gorgeous view of the city. The Fernsehturm, or TV tower stretched up into the sky, and a bungee jumper plunged into the air off the top of the Hotel Park Inn, only minutes after Sam informed me that we could watch bungee jumping in Alexanderplatz. On one side of the cathedral, we found that an enormous heart was mowed into the grass. This was one of the many instances that fed the growing realization that Berlin is a city with high self esteem, and brimming, in a way, with love.

Berlin Love

In a fairly avant-garde move, the Berlin Wall’s usual appearance, preserved as it has been since it came down was totally revamped in celebration of the 20^th anniversary of its fall. Every few panels was commissioned to an artist. Everything from delicate, sophisticated surrealism to kindergarten handprints grace the wall. Aptly, the area is referred to as the East Side Gallery.

Through our walks through the city, seeing the Reichstag, the Chancellor’s office, the library, the Brandenburg Bridge, the Holocaust Memorial, the gardens and fountains around the Engelbecken basin, there were posters of big red hearts. “Allah Loves You,” some claimed. Others, “Jesus Loves You,” “I love you,” and “I am You.” There were hearts everywhere, entirely unironic it seemed. With every passing moment the city left me increasingly charmed.

Legos.

When we weren’t running about the city, stuffing our faces or dancing the night away in Matrix-like basements of plants, we hung about their large drafty apartment, designed like a loop along which each room lies, and talked about the history of Berlin, our bizarre stage in life as a generation in this moment in history, and true to form, coupled our babbling with wine and delicious German beer. Bryan and Sam buttressed their history briefs with a screening of Das Leben Der Anderen, which immediately gave immense depth to the organization and culture I’d witnessed during my travels.

My favorite

It’s fairly obvious I’m really going to miss that girl. But my god am I going to miss that sky. I said so to a thirty-something woman who was trying to give me fliers for the giant marionette show in Alexanderplatz, and she gave me my last giant hug goodbye and assured me the city would miss me right back. In a British accent.

- TriCon

… which, of course, is the title of a Leonard Cohen song – best version by Jennifer Warnes.

In England we have this rather sad envy of all things German. In Germany – so the story goes – everything is top quality, everything works as it is supposed to work, the trains run on time and they all speak English anyway.

Well, they do ‘do’ quality – just look at their buildings. Everything works everywhere – and, if it doesn’t, they put it right very quickly. Most speak English – which can be a little frustrating if you want to work on your German. But - and it is with some relief and a certain Schadenfreude that I report this – the trains no longer run on time.

Or, at least, mine didn’t yesterday. The Deutsche Bundesbahn was late!

I took part in the final ‘pilgrimage’ walk with 1000 people through Kassel, concluding with me and Carla Maurer (from Switzerland and on the right of the picture) sending people on their way home with God’s blessing. This final event also involved Bishop Wolfgang Huber and the President of Germany, Horst Koehler and his wife. So, I sat with them on the stage, had a good conversation with them afterwards (in which I suggested he didn’t come to Berlin Cathedral on Sunday morning) and then had coffee with friends before catching the fast train to Berlin.

It took 90 minutes longer than it should have done. By the time we got into Berlin I had missed the lecture I had planned to go to at the Humboldt University by Professor Dr Christoph Schwoebel. That’s ninety minutes late! So, I checked into the hotel, got a meal and had an early night.

This morning I was preaching at the Berliner Dom and I have worried about this for weeks – probably annoying everyone else by moaning about it too openly. In Kassel a good friend of mine, Christoph Roemhild, helped me with the German; so I was able to mount the extraordinarily enormous and intimidating pulpit with more confidence than I deserved. There was a congregation of (so I was told) around 700. I preached on the raising of Lazarus (you can read the basic text on the Berliner Dom website) and when I finished there was spontaneous applause. That has never happened to me before. I think they were so relieved it was over that they couldn’t contain themselves.

The service was wonderful and nearly had me in tears. The choir and orchestra led the setting by Johann Sebastian Bach and the service was led by the Dompredigerin, Frau Petra Zimmermann, and the EKD Bishop for Ecumenical and Foreign Affairs, Martin Schindehuette.

This service was, however, more than an opportunity to hear an Englishman speak German in public – which is usually good for a laugh. It represented yet another opportunity for German and English Christians to worship and serve together. This month represents a number of anniversaries: 70 years after the outbreak of the Second World War; 60 years of the German Constitution (Grundgesetz); 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall; and almost 20 years of the Meissen Agreement (bringing together the German Protestant Church and the Church of England in a common service of the people of Europe).

In my sermon I did draw attention to the fact that much of the reconciliation after the war was only possible because of the readiness of the churches to admit guilt, reach out and provide a rationale and locus for forgiveness, reconciliation and hope. We take it for granted now, but I found myself deeply moved by the unity we demonstrated and genuinely felt as we worshipped together this morning.

While waiting for the bus to the airport (where I am writing this) I looked again at the Berlin television tower – an embarrassment to the East German authorities during the Communist years. Every time the sun shone on it, the reflection took the form of a cross!

Incidentally, the reason I advised the German President to worship elsewhere this morning was because it is Election Day in Germany and he told me he would normally go to church before voting. I thought he might prefer to hear a German sermon rather than an outsider’s ruminations. I hope he had a good morning – he is a very nice man.

Das Portal des Domes ist von zwei Engeln flankiert. Heute habe ich den Engel der rechten Seite gemalt. Er trägt im Gegensatz zur Fakel seines linken Bruders eine Blüte. Ich habe die Farbe wieder sparsamer eingesetzt, um den Engel in den Vordergrund zu rücken.

Heute habe ich ein wenig über den Berliner Dom gelesen und war erstaunt, dass er erst vor gut 100 Jahren (1905) fertig gestellt wurde. Ich hätte ihn viel älter geschätzt. Es gab natürlich einige Vorgängerbauten.

Rechter Engel am Portal des Berliner Doms - Zeichnung von Susanne Haun

Heute also habe ich schon einmal den linken Engel vom Domportal betrachtet. Es ist unglaublich, ich wußte bis vor kurzem gar nicht, wie schön dieser Engel ist. Ich habe immer nur den gesamten Dom gesehen und der Engel ist einfach beim Betrachten untergegangen.
Heute habe ich mich nicht nur mit dem Engel sondern auch den Farben grün und blau beschäftigt. Ich habe vom Engel einen Ausschnitt gezeichnet und zuerst strickt getrennt mit blau und gelb verstärkt. Aber beim ersten Betrachten war ich sehr unzufrieden. Ich fand die Trennung der Farben furchtbar. Also nahm ich nach dem Trocknen gelb und ging über fast das ganze Bild mit einem großen Pinsel mit Gelb rüber. Das schließt das Bild. Im nachhinein bin ich mir nicht mehr sicher, ob die erste Variante wirklich so schlimm war, wie ich sie empfunden habe. Aber trotzdem gefällt mir die “gegelbte” Variante besser. Sie ist eindringlicher.
Der Engel mit dem Ansatz des Portals ohne Farbe erscheint mir eleganter und heroischer.

Heute habe ich mich über mich selber und meine Motivwahl amüsiert.
Ich war mit Andreas und seinem Malkurs am Berliner Dom. Es war dort gespenstig ruhig und anders als sonst. Zum einen ist der Palast der Republik weg, abgerissen. Das ermöglicht neue Ansichten zum Dom und auch vom Lustgarten aus gibt es viele neue Blicke. Zum anderen war wegen der Leichtathletik WM “Unter den Linden” für den Autoverkehr gesperrt. Es war dadurch sehr ruhig und die Stimmung war eine ganz andere als sonst. Ich hatte mir eigentlich vorgenommen, die beiden Engel vom Portal des Doms zu malen oder auch vielleicht die Reiter vor dem Alten Museum. Ich war aber so beeindruckt von dieses für mich so ungewohnte Bild vom Dom, dass ich nur schauen und aufnehmen konnte. Ich habe mich auf den Boden gesetzt und geschaut und geschaut.
Ich besann mich zwischendurch auf meine Malsachen und malte dann dass, was mir am nächsten war und was ich gedanklich schon verarbeitet hatte: die Trompetenblumen im Topf vor dem Dom
Ich habe mich die ganze Zeit gefragt, ob die vielen Blumenkübel immer am Dom stehen oder ob sie für die Leichtathletik WM hingestellt wurden, damit die Bilder der Geher, die vom Fernsehen in alle Welt gesendet werden, eine Berliner Dom Idylle vermitteln?

Trompetenblumen am Berliner Dom - Zeichnung von Susanne Haun

Berliner Dom

I spent my whole weekend with Jess…

Friday we went to the cinema and decided to watch the movie Brüno: It really kicked ass! So f.cking funny! It was definately worth watching! We were laughing the whoooole time.

Saturday we decided to make a sightseeing tour on the Spree. O.o It was nice to get to know Berlin a bit more… after living 20 years in Berlin… haha… And we didn’t had to pay for our ice cream. Well, we had to. But the waitress just forgot that we had an ice cream.

Later we stopped at delicious Vapiano. After eating were moanig the whole time! And searched for gummibears. lol

The weather on sunday was very, very hot! We decided to bathe in the sun at the Berliner Dom. Weird music, some weird people, but it was nice though! Always nice there and Berlin is really a beauty city.

Thanks Jess! ;D

And now… A short stupid video o.O It’s… “furchtbar…” xD

No words can describe how much I love shooting Berlin.  Especially on an old East German camera like the Beltica.

_ Oberbaumbrücke _

_ Check Point Charlie _

_ East Side Gallery _

_ Berliner Dom _

_ somewhere in … Berlin _

_ Potsdamer Platz _

Wednesday consisted of a lot of museum hopping, for I had purchased a three-day museum pass for the very attractive price of €9.5, which afforded me admission to the permanent exhibitions of almost 100 museums in the city.

I started at the Hamburger Bahnhof, which despite its name is no longer a train station, rather a museum of contemporary art. The museum itself was rather primitive exhibition place, but the contents were far from ordinary. In the permanent collection was a set of works by the West-German Cold War artist Anselm Kiefer, who according to Professor Jennings is “one of the most problematic artists of his time”. There was a big painting titled Wege der Weltweisheit: die Hermannschlacht (Due to the wisdom of the world: the Battle of the Teutoberg Forest), which twin I had glimpsed in the Martin-Gropius Bau. This two-tone painting was a collage of woodcuts of prominent figures in German intellectual and political history, people like Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx, with their faces brutally crossed out and overlaid with images of burning branches, to illustrate how centuries of German tradition and reputation since the renowned battle in year 9 AD was annihilated by the Holocaust. I thought it was genius, and the nearby Mohn & Gedächtnis, a grey cardboard statue of a bomber, was great as well. I also enjoyed a set of three paintings by Robert Rauschenberg, titled Stripper, First Time Painting and The Frightened Gods of Fortune respectively. The abstract representations took me some time to interpret, but they were extremely clever.

Left: Hamburger Bahnhof; Right: View of Altes Museum from across the Lustgarten

I visited a temporary exhibit on an artist network known as Fluxus, whose members included the famous Nam June Paik and Joseph Beuys among many others. They believed that art should be public instead of private property, and therfore sold works at very low prices and offered many free performances to make art easily accessible to the masses. Their motto was “Kunst is Leben, Leben ist Kunst” (Art is life, life is art), and through their creative transformations of ordinary objects into works of art, one could easily see how this brave vision was made into reality. Some of their works were very baffling though, including of course Beuys’ interaction with his dead hare, and a “public performance guide” which read:

Six exhibits:
- Ceiling
- First Wall
- Second Wall
- Third Wall
- Fourth Wall
- Floor

Much of the exhibition space was dedicated to Joseph Beuys, whose art I still have difficulties comprehending (to me, wrapping up a grand piano in fat and felt is more a demonstration of insanity than one of innovation). One of his works, however, was very interesting. Titled Das Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts, it used a collection of volcanic rocks to represent an apocalyptic vision. These rocks came out of the mouth of a volcano in liquid, malleable form, and their shape only became fixed once they cooled down. The transformation from energetic movement to complete rigidity was an unusual yet very appropriate metaphor for the death of progress, and the work definitely helped me appreciate the work of this incomparably controversial artist.

Berliner Dom

I then went to the Museumsinsel, but before using my museum pass once again, I made a detour to the Berliner Dom. Though the exterior of this 104-year old building may be a confusing and somewhat forced combination of different styles, the interior was fantastically magnificent, and almost made me regret suggesting the Czech Republic instead of Germany as the destination of the Princeton Chapel Choir’s next trip. I would love to try out the acoustics here and sing to the accompaniment of the enormous organ some day!

On the two sides of the cathedral (I forgot the technical term for this…) and in the crypt were the sarcophagi of Prussian royals, the most famous of which was Frederick I, founder of the Kingdom of Prussia, and Frederick III, the enlightened Kaiser who unfortunately only reigned for 99 days. Notably missing, however, were Wilhelm I, who had chosen to be buried at Schloss Charlottenburg, and of course Frederick the Great, whose simple grave next to his favourite Schloss Sanssouci is far more memorable than any elaborate sarcophagus in the Berliner Dom.

Next stop was the Alte Nationalgallerie, which featured German art from the late 18th to early 20th century. On the first floor was a series of fascinating works by Adolf Menzel, many of them depicting the life and times of Frederick the Great. The most famous one there was Flötenkonzert Friedrichs des Großen in Sanssouci, showing the Prussian king playing one of his own flute sonatas in the main hall of Sanssouci while C.P.E. Bach accompanied him on the harpsichord. This was the painting which prompted me to develop an interest in Frederick the Great, so I was absolutely exhilarated to see not only the original, but also its draft.

Left: Alte Nationalgallerie; Right: Flötenkonzert Friedrichs des Großen in Sanssouci by Adolf Menzel

Another part of the museum which I really liked was a hall on the third floor dedicated to the works of Caspar David Friedrich, most famous for Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer (The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog). His use of colour and shading to create dramatic landscapes in Abtei im Eichwald (Abbey in Oak Wood), Der Monch am Meer (The Monk by the Sea) and Der Greifswalder Hafen (The Greifswald Harbour) produce an intense effect that few artists can match. The audio guide used Karl Theodor Körners exquisite poem Totenlandschaft (Landscape of the Dead) to accompany the first painting, which further enhanced the phenomenal experience.

Left to Right: Abtei im Eichwald, Der Monch am Meer, Der Greifswalder Hafen (all by Caspar David Friedrich)

This was followed by a quick walk through the Pergamon, probably the most popular museum among the 170+ in Berlin. This museum of ancient history contains gargantuan reconstructions of classical Greek structures, most notably the Pergamon Altar. Despite my lack of interest in the ancient Greeks, I know this is a museum I will never forget. The 19th century reconstruction of Nebuchadnezzar II’s Ishtar Tor and the exhibits in the near and far east collections were just as impressive.

Left: the Pergamon temple, constructed from fragments excavated in the Ottoman Empire;
Right: Market Gate of Miletus, another structure constructed from archaeological finds

Left: Reconstruction of the Ishtar Tor from Babylon; Right: Syrian architecture inside the museum

I finally headed to the Altes Museum, and though the antique collection was completely outside my spectrum of interests, I am glad to say that I have seen the original bust of Nefertiti, and for a work of art more than 3000 years old, it is extraordinarily beautiful and well-preserved.

Left: Altes Museum from across the Lustgarten; Right: Bust of Nefertiti

It had been a long day, but before heading back to my hostel I still had an appointment – I was meeting up with Nat, a fellow Princetonian who is in Berlin for the Summer Work Program organized by the Department of German. I had set up a meeting for “Monday evening” (29 June), but because of my horrible sense of time, I had mistaken 29 June for a Sunday and made him walk around at the Frankfurter Tor U-Bahn station for 20 minutes to no avail. Fortunately, he accepted my apologies and graciously agreed to meet on this day. This time he brought along his boyfriend Newton, also a Princetonian and a participant of the Work Program who I had not met before, and we sat for an hour and a half in an Indian restaurant, talking about our summers so far and how much we like Princeton. I had a wonderful time, and it was a great way to end the eventful day.

Kleiner Tip: Wenn ihr in Berlin zufällig am Dom vorbeikommt, dann legt doch eine kleine Geschichtsstunde ein. Gleich hinter dem Bauwerk, in der Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 1, unten am Bootsanleger, liegt das DDR-Museum. Es ist klein aber gut gemacht. In die Wänden sind überall Themen-Schubladen zum Herausziehen eingelassen. Darin sind Dinge, wie alte Ost-Spielzeuge, eine Schultasche, eine Jugendweihe-Ausstattung etc. Ganz wichtig ist natürlich der Ausstellungsteil über die FKK-Kultur der Arbeiterklasse. Wer sich nach den deprimierenden Eindrücken erstmal entspannen möchte, kann in einem typischen DDR-Wohnzimmer Platz nehmen. Auch eine kleine DDR-Küche und ein WC sind aufgebaut – nur als Deko, versteht sich! Eintritt für Erwachsene: 5,50 Euro. www.ddr-museum.de

You won’t find Berlin Castle in any guide book, as over the five-plus centuries since its construction it has undergone many changes, so much so that it is now known as Berlin Cathedral. Now that’s what I call an extreme makeover.

The Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church (to give it its correct name) received its most recent makeover in 1944 when an Allied bomb scored a direct hit, reducing the dome to rubble.

The original castle before its extreme makeover.

Final stages of alteration.

After a recent lick of paint.

The interior, with a mighty fine organ.

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