BERLIN

The Perennial Institute is an experimental educational program exploring art and design through the lens of plants. Co-founded by Berlin-based artist Jai McKenzie and Minneapolis-based designer Julka Almquist, the inaugural week-long program will take place August 19 - 25 in Berlin, hosting artists and designers from across the globe who share an interest in expanding and deepening their practice through a multifaceted exploration of plants. They are taking applications for the Berlin program through July 15.

What were the origins of this idea?

Jai: I had organized an exhibition by artists working with meditative approaches. During the exhibition, a local pharmacist and yogi, Cordula Linke, led a plant meditation, and I felt a deep connection with the basil plant. It was one of those moments where I realized that many artists, myself included, are already working with plants, and that it’s a fantastic way to think through creativity.

I was also feeling  frustrated with current educational structures and art schools, where  costly degrees give little back, considering students’ investment in time and money, and an art industry that seems old and outdated. I felt inspired to design an experience where people can learn and create together in new ways, and Julka, whom I met by chance at Olafur Eliasson’s studio, felt like the perfect collaborator.

Why are you drawn to plants?

Jai: Plants are a fundamental aspect of our existence. They are cohabitants of this planet, and we believe they are our teachers. Plants are part of my consciousness in ways I’m only starting to understand. They nourish me. They liberate my imagination. I care for them, and they care for me.

Julka: Nature, as a domain, feels too big, but plants provide an opportunity to both focus and create expansive thinking. Plants offer a range of inspiration—from tiny pollen structures to huge ecosystems and networks of engagement. There are endless metaphors and potential to translate ideas and structures to different contexts. They also occupy an interesting space between the scientific and the mystical—a lot of creative energy exists in this space.

What does the program entail?

Jai: The program is very much an experiment, and I hope that it will always be like that. We focus on co-learning, co-creation, and collaboration with all of the participants.

To do this, we have created a space of possibility, and within that are experiential tours, sensory-tuning practices, forest and garden exploration, foraging, food arrangement, and Ikebana class. There is also the opportunity to move from concise literary readings to discursive and personal interpretations throughout each day.

What is your pedagogical philosophy?

Julka : We have both taught in traditional art and design school settings and found institutional practices to be limiting. We wanted to create our own framework for teaching that focuses on approaches that are embodied, experiential, feminine, and intuitive. We also believe that learning is inherently social and ought to explicitly present the opportunity to build strong relationships.

KOBA is located in Kreuzberg, Berlin. It’s is an electronic textile tailor shop where anybody can place an order for custom-made wearable technology garments and accessories. By offering a place for individuals to commission tailor-made technology, in a society used to one-size-fits-all, the question of what can technology do for you? is asked. Hannah Perner-Wilson and Mika Satomi have been both working in the field of eTextiles/wearable technology for more than 10 years as designers and artists. They try to approach technology with humor and craftsmanship.

"Pretty in Motion" is one of their realization: « written language is a powerful tool for private communication as well as public propaganda. How would you feel about displaying words that hold meaning on your body? Would you write your own words? Would you select from your favorite song lyrics? Would you ask somebody to compose a poem for you to wear? Would you choose powerful words that scream ideology. Would you use poetic language to express something you want others to understand. Would you become a platform for the public to voice their opinions?

« With "poetry in motion" we’re exploring what meanings we can create by putting words on the body. And for the first time in a long time I’m working with optic fibers. Thin plastic tubes that emit light when a bright LED light is shone in one end of the tube. The reason the light emits from the sides of the tube is either because the surface is scratched or damaged on the outside, or the tube is hollow within and a cloudy coating causes the light to “catch” and illuminate the tube. »

Another realization is « the extrasensory listener jacket « , the idea is to produce a jacket to cycle around Berlin listening to EMF
« We move through the world seeing coloured light, hearing audible sound waves, smelling certain molecules, feeling hot and freezing cold. Our realities are made up of what we perceive, of the kinds of information and data we can sense and detect. There are many physical phenomena in our world that our bodies are not able to sense/detect and we’ve developed technologies to do this for us. But these technologies tend to be housed in boxes, in hand-held devices, their data visualized on screens… what would the world be like if we had extra senses? If moving through the world resulted in a sound-track to our lives… how would we perceive the world differently? Experiences that alter our senses can help us change our perspective… »

www.kobakant.at

Photos Thomas Straub 

As the world tumbles from crisis into crisis - think Trump, think Brexit, think extreme social divisions and uncertainty - a few people lift the spirits and try to find a renewed awareness within our generation. One of these few people is Johann König, who founded the König Galerie at the age of 20 immediately after moving to Berlin from Frankfurt in 2002.
 
On the day of the 60th anniversary of the signing of the The Treaties of Rome - which laid the foundation for today’s European Union - a special pro-Europe event was organised at the König Galerie in Berlin, raising the question what every one of us could do to contribute to a new European identity. The evening included a light installation spelling EUROPA on the galleries’ facade, talks with actress Sauerbruch Hutton, politician Klaus Lederer, artist Wolfgang Tillmans and architect duo Matthias Sauerbruch and Louisa Hutton as well as the launch of the movement's own fashion item.
 
This special items forms a part of the König Gallery’s own merchandise line, ‘König Souvenir,’ which is currently making waves in Berlin and far beyond. Its key piece is as democratic as you can get: the bright blue EUnify hoodie with 11 golden stars, basically a wearable European Union flag.

One star is missing - this gap represents UK’s exit from the EU and under the hood, the phone number of the EU hotline recalls a unique resource of political education.

 
The collection of König Souvenir also features ‘The Norbert Bisky Beach Towel’ in support of LGBTQ culture and ‘The Issie Energie Longsleeve’ which celebrates the life and work of artist Isa Genzken.

Arthur Groeneveld
 
koenigsouvenir.com
 
koeniggalerie.com

Arthur Groeneveld (1986) is the co-founder of creative consulting collective 1kg as well as one half of photography duo Arturo Bamboo

In turbulent times like these, the best initiatives seem to come from the ground up. In Berlin, a unique inter-faith, crowdfunded project is taking shape: The House of One.Throughout history, it was not uncommon that different faiths used the same buildings but usually not at the same time , think of temples which turned into mosques, mosques which turned into cathedrals and churches which turned into synagogues. This religious structure will be the world’s first house of prayer for the three main religions, containing a church, a mosque, and a synagogue. The structure is to be built on the Fischerinsel, a place for religious worship since the early Middle Ages and will be placed exactly where Berlin’s first church, St. Peter’s once stood. At this very place, Berlin started - a city which has now grown into a multicultural, multifaith metropol.
 
Berlin-based architects Kuehn Malvezzi won the international architectural competition for the House of One in 2012. The practice plans a hexagonal-shaped building with a central meeting space with doors leading off into spaces for each faith. Mr. Kuehn: “while the outward appearance represents the idea of oneness, the inside spaces of the House of One are distinct and diverse. They are sculpted into the volume, creating inside the House of One a city within the city.”

For the House of One, donations came in already from more than 40 different countries: 10 euro will buy you one single brick of the structure and enables smaller investors to step in and create a community of people interested in the inter-faith dialogue.
 
Rabbi Tovia Ben-Chorin: "Berlin is the city of wounds and miracles, it is the city in which the extermination of the Jews was planned. Now, the first house in the world for three religions is to be built here.”
 
Arthur Groeneveld
 
house-of-one.org/en

Arthur Groeneveld (1986) is the co-founder of creative consulting collective 1kg as well as one half of photography duo Arturo Bamboo

Over the last months Berlin’s cityscape was featured as backdrop for various advertising campaigns. Former GDR apartment blocks, the City-West and an unique architectural U-bahn station created momentum for Berlin and its gritty looks.
 

The latest Adidas campaign - shot by Jürgen Teller - captures the ‘only the essentials’ design philosophy that is behind the new EQT sneakers when they were first introduced in the 90s. The series also pays tribute to the Berlin youth it was part of during that time - the look and feel is completely anti-glamour, something both Berlin and Adidas are known for. Adidas is not new to featuring Berlin: photographer Benjamin Alexander Huseby used the underground station ‘Fehrberlinerplatz’ as the backdrop of the active wear and lifestyle collections. This bright red, sculptural underground station with it’s rounded corners has a pop-art feel to it which stands in stark contrast to the National Socialist administrative buildings surrounding it.
 

Last year, within days of each other, Gucci and Givenchy also used Berlin also As the backdrop for their latest collections:
Director Glen Luchford created a colorful, nostalgic and cinematic aesthetic for Gucci. He clearly took inspiration from the cult movie Christiane F which caused controversy as the movie tells the true story about teenage addicts in the heroine scene of Berlin in the eighties. The brand stated it was ‘inspired by the carefree and hedonistic spirit of Berlin as well as the visual language and aesthetic of German Eighties pop culture.’

While Gucci focused on the West, Givenchy focused on the East: photographer duo 02gb created a series of images and Matt Lambert the accompanying video. Locations included the Karl-Marx Allee with it’s Plattenbau and Socialist Classicist buildings and the Kino International - a iconic cinema which hosted all of the East’s premieres until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
 

Arthur Groeneveld
 

www.adidas.com
www.gucci.com
www.givenchy.com
www.glenluchford.com
www.juergenteller.com
www.benjaminhuseby.com
www.dielamb.com
www.02gb.com

Arthur Groeneveld (1986) is the co-founder of creative consulting collective 1kg as well as one half of photography duo Arturo Bamboo.

This year, Germany saw up to 1.5 million asylum seekers to arrive in the country, a significant number ends up in the capital Berlin. Its population reacts in its own particular way: open-minded, creative and pro-active. Various groups, communities, renowned artists and companies organize all kinds of activities in effort to support the newcomers whether through music, classes, food, workshops, or other social happenings. These are some outstanding examples of the many, many initiatives happening in Berlin:
 
Last summer, renowned photographer Wolfgang Tillmans dedicated his project space ‘Between Bridges’ completely to the ongoing European migrant crisis. Goal of the artist was to start a forum, a dialogue from within the art community in order understand how the arrival of asylum seekers has provoked such polarization among the European population. With ‘Between Bridges’ Tillmans wanted to offer a space where people could get to know each other again, in real life.
 
The ‘Welcome Festival’ is another great example of how Berlin copes with the current crisis. Volunteers created a festival where cultures from all over the world come together in a safe space to talk, learn, make music, dance, eat and drink. In addition to this, there’s a more serious side to the festival: a legal council and translation services were also to be found within the premises. The organisers are convinced there must be a more harmonious future possible: cultural exchange and mutual enrichment instead of creating more differences and barriers.
 
The other way around is also possible: newcomers take Berliners on a tour to show them ‘their Berlin’. Arij and Samer, both from Syria, show seemingly insignificant places such as supermarkets and mobile phone shops which actually play a crucial role in their new life. During the two hour tour, they share stories such as their escape route, former place of residence and everyday challenges in the world of a refugee.

Another big-name artist who drew attention to the crisis was Ai Weiwei, recently relocated to Berlin. He produced a five-column installation on the facade of Berlin’s concert hall, a collection of 14,000 life vests from refugees who landed on the Greek island of Lesbos. These life vests form only a small percentage of the thousands of jackets that remain on the shores of the island - symbolizing the total number of refugees who try to find their way to the European mainland.

Arthur Groeneveld
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tillmans.co.uk
 
aiweiwei.com
 
givesomethingbacktoberlin.com
 
querstadtein-gefluechtete.myobis.com
 
betweenbridges.net
 
refugeevoicestours
 
A Guy Named Arturo, the alias of Amsterdam/Berlin-based creative consultant Arthur Groeneveld (1986), is an interdisciplinary one-man-show offering brand support, communications, art direction, trend forecasting, and creative research. Also, he forms part of creative duo Arturo Bamboo.
 
arturo-bamboo.com

The modern street food movement started around 2004 in California: movie catering trucks were taken onto the streets. A few years later, started off by the recession, passionated food entrepreneurs with small budgets renovated trucks to serve qualitative, affordable food to the people of California. The last decade showed the movement growing up: instead of burgers and hot dogs we enjoy fresh, more healthy food such as banh mi, lentil samosa, kimchi taco’s and bi bim bap.
 
Besides these mobile and temporary stalls at food markets such as Bite Club and Markthalle Neun, Berlin is seeing an influx of more permanent places in surprising spots. Its modular cityscape shows a very diverse and architecturally interesting collection of kiosks serving quality food: ranging from Korean shacks strategically based between parks, kitchens in containers placed on unused plots of land, hidden vegan joints nestled in between Turkish shisa lounges to a Japanese take-out on a subway platform.
 
Often, the chaotic but colorful street food markets of South-East Asia serve as inspiration: recycled goods and other creative use of material is key. These Berlin food stalls let you travel the world by tasting and trying these passionately made dishes - the shacks feel like small countries on their own. It’s possible to explore foods from different continents through the Berlin food scene by just wandering the streets.
 
Arthur Groeneveld

www.mmaah.de
 
www.solarkiosk.eu
 
prinzessinnengarten.net
 
markthalleneun.de
 
biteclub.de
 
 
A Guy Named Arturo, the alias of Amsterdam/Berlin-based creative consultant Arthur Groeneveld (1986), is an interdisciplinary one-man-show offering brand support, communications, art direction, trend forecasting, and creative research. Also, he forms part of creative duo Arturo Bamboo.
 
arturo-bamboo.com

Gone are the days of sticking with one company for life, remaining in a fixed location. Freedom, mobility and flexibility are the key-words today: the current generation celebrates their independence like no other. These modern-day pioneers live a nomadic lifestyle, also when it comes to work.
 
Around the world, more and more of these nomad workers flock to co-working spaces: these almost physical social networks give the ideal answer to changing needs in our professional lives. Freelancers, start-ups and entrepreneurs are leaving their home-offices and cafes to settle into flexible, shared spaces to work. They look for the amenities and atmosphere of their apartments and cafe - wifi, comfortable furniture, printers, good coffee, a physical space to meet - but then without being home or in that coffeeshop. A space like this solves the problem of isolation and losing human interaction, a feeling many of the new nomads experience. At the same time this physical space offers them an escape from the many distractions of home. A place where they can concentrate, but also communicate and mingle.
 
Shared office space offers an affordable and flexible alternative to traditional working space and gains popularity. The number of worldwide co-working spaces grew 300% compared to 2010: worldwide there are roughly 2500 co-working places in 80 countries. In start-up metropolis Berlin one can find already 68 co-working spaces: only London and New York outnumber the German capital.

Berlin’s amazing variety shows again: the relatively low cost of living, cheap rents and oversupply of industrial buildings created the perfect playground for creating innovative co-working spaces. Institutions vary from The Factory - a high-tech space financed by Google, to more artistic, experimental spaces such as the Agora Collective. Besides co-working, The Factory offers events, training programs and accelerator classes for rising start-ups in a state-of-the art building. Laid-back Agora hosts people and collaborative projects in a former metal workshop based on a philosophy that reflects the values of its community: diversity, self-organisation and social ties. Currently, Agora works on a second space for creatives and innovators in a former brewery where art, innovation and the circular economy will be combined.
 

What all co-working spaces have in common: they are increasingly important for the local economy and manage to create a community in a natural way. This new way of working and its values - innovation, openness, sustainability, collaboration, entrepreneurship - will create positive social, economical and cultural spill-over effects in all the layers our professional lives.

Arthur Groeneveld

agoracollective.org
 
www.factoryberlin.com
 
www.betahaus.com
 

A Guy Named Arturo, the alias of Amsterdam/Berlin-based creative consultant Arthur Groeneveld (1986), is an interdisciplinary one-man-show offering brand support, communications, art direction, trend forecasting, and creative research. Also, he forms part of creative duo Arturo Bamboo.
 
aguynamedarturo.com

Brutalism: the post-World War II style of architecture with an emphasis on materials, textures and construction. This rough and brutish aesthetic was popular for governmental structures thanks to its ‘honest’ ideology. Today, brutalism is experiencing a come-back through architects and designers who’ve have adopted elements of this particular style. Think of Alexander Wang’s collaboration with H&M, the Adidas Tubular series or the work of architect Tadao Ando.

Another modern day example is to be found In Berlin: a former church by Werner Duettmann experienced a revival due to it’s impressive brutalist architecture. St. Agnes, a monument of its era, is recently turned into a cultural complex: gallerist Johan König initiated the project and turned the sacred main space - the actual Church - into an impressive gallery. Art and fashion magazine 032c created the 032c Workshop within another part of the complex: the magazine’s exhibition and event space features an 8-meter-long vitrine designed by Konstantin Grcic. König and 032c are joined by a growing number of creative partners such as architects Robert Neun, art publisher The Green Box and the minimalist Agnes Cafetaria.

All of these combined are turning this landmark complex into Berlin’s new creative hub.

Arthur Groeneveld

www.st-agnes.net

www.johannkoenig.de

A Guy Named Arturo, the alias of Amsterdam/Berlin-based creative consultant Arthur Groeneveld (1986), is an interdisciplinary one-man-show offering brand support, communications, art direction, trend forecasting, and creative research. Also, he forms part of creative duo Arturo Bamboo.

aguynamedarturo.com

Packaging and the resulting waste is one of the greatest challenges of our time. In Germany alone, some 16 million tonnes of packaging waste is yearly produced. As a reaction in Berlin - always on the forefront of new developments when it comes to eco-consciousness - a packaging-free supermarket has opened. This grocery store of the future is called ‘Original Unverpackt’ (Original Unpackaged) and got rid of all packaging and brands resulting in less recycling, less waste.
 
How does it work? Clients bring their own reusable containers, boxes and jars to the store and fill them up with dry goods such as pastas, nuts and rice which are stored in dispenser bins. Milk, juices and other liquids are sold in bottles with a deposit on them. At the cash desk, clients pay for what they buy based on the weight of the goods.

‘Back to the roots - back to the basics, but with innovation and style’ is the motto of initiators Sara Wolf and Milena Glimbovski. This becomes also clear in the store design: contemporary, with respect to the historical building and with smart solutions to create space for all the dispensers. Original Unverpackt proves that waste-free shopping can be simple and even fun.
 
Arthur Groeneveld
 
original-unverpackt
 
A Guy Named Arturo, the alias of Amsterdam/Berlin-based creative consultant Arthur Groeneveld (1986), is an interdisciplinary one-man-show offering brand support, communications, art direction, trend forecasting, and creative research. Also, he forms part of creative duo Arturo Bamboo.
 
aguynamedarturo.com

After experiencing the negative sides of the high-end beauty industry with all its controversial ingredients, it is time for a change. Currently, luxury cosmetics are full of toxic preservatives and irritating fragrances. On the other hand, the earthy natural cosmetics lack powerful, fashionable colors.
 
Berlin-based make-up artists Christina Roth and brand specialist Stephanie Dettmann created a new collection of organic make-up: UndGretel.
 
UndGretel fills the gap and is doing things differently: by using ingredients such as avocado oil and chamomile in combination with mineral pigments the products are nourishing, full of color and even smell good. Also, UndGretel was tested on friends and family rather than animals. The collection offers now eleven products with « a fashion heart and an organic soul ».

The founders believe that nature already designed the most beautiful colors, shades, smells and ingredients and inspired by the colors of the sunrise, the first fresh green leaves of spring, and pink night sky but also by haute couture and the avant-garde edge that defines true Berlin style.
 
Goal for UndGretel is to create awareness: treat yourself and the environment in a respectful way.
 
 
Bamboo van Kampen
 
 
www.undgretel.com
 
Bamboo van Kampen, 26, is an all-round creative specializing in visuals and colors; she forms half of the Berlin-based duo Arturo Bamboo.

When it comes to food in major urban areas, young entrepreneurs find more and more self-sustaining ways of working, using locally sourced, fresh ingredients, affordability and personalized service as key features.
 

Berliner Volker Eichenhofer, typically for his generation, works cross-disciplinary: his activities range from fashion photography to cooking. Within his project Volkspeisung ( power to the people ) all of this comes together. As a photographer, Eichenhofer was already picked up by the Berliner creative crowd because of his pure, raw images of food. Instead of the overly styled images we normally see in lifestyle magazines and on food blogs, Eichenhofer created a new category: his photos show the real deal, raw and untouched - food we see and eat everyday.
 

Started off as a minimalistic blog with these pure images, Volkspeisung is now also a bike delivery service serving healthy dishes to the creative crowd of Berlin-Mitte. Eichenhofer cooks the dishes with ingredients of the season only until medium rare, in this way a maximum amount of nutrition and vitamins will be preserved. After delivery, customers only need to heat it up for 2 minutes and their lunch is ready: this is how every lunch should be: healthy, good-looking and fun to eat.

There are many different elements which makes Eichenhofer’s work unique: his personal and sustainable way of working, the focus on nutrition, his aim to make lunch at work fun again and his close connection to the arts.
 

Arthur Groeneveld
 

www.volksspeisung.de
 

food-and-faces.tumblr.com
 

www.volker-eichenhofer.com

A Guy Named Arturo, the alias of Amsterdam/Berlin-based creative consultant Arthur Groeneveld (1986), is an interdisciplinary one-man-show offering brand support, communications, art direction, trend forecasting, and creative research. Also, he forms part of creative duo Arturo Bamboo.

aguynamedarturo.com

When it comes to food awareness, Western cities are finally embracing the same zeitgeist: local, sustainable, organic and innovative. Now these urban areas grow denser, people start looking for an equivalent of the countryside in the city more and more: green, sustainable places which can exist within these concrete jungles. Places to unwind, reconnect and communicate with the natural world and human beings around us, places that make our cities a better place to live. Think of rooftop community gardens, pop-up parks, urban farms, bio balcony's and guerrilla greenery.

Cityplot, an urban farming collective based in Amsterdam and Berlin dreams of a new wave of greenery in cities worldwide, creating a sustainable lifestyle and community alike. The collective encourages and educates city dwellers how to grow their own vegetables, herbs, edible flowers, micro-greens, fruits and berries or even how to keep chickens in the city. The collective demonstrates how simple it is to provide healthy and sustainable alternatives to the global food system. Goal is to show how to start grow and maintain your own edible balcony, square-meter, windowsill, rooftop, office garden or vertical garden.
 
Getting your eyes away for the screen and your hands into the earth together is the perfect way to be outdoors, learn new skills and to create community.

In both Amsterdam and Berlin, Cityplot offers a wide range of gatherings and workshops ranging from a permaculture introductory course to a year long urban farmer training program. Cityplot also offers colleague outings and educational children’s workshops that fit the current worldwide green scheme. Colleagues can bond while visiting local food projects around the cities and try themselves: planting, weeding, harvesting and preparing the garden treats will definitely increase the team spirit! And as today’s kids are tomorrow’s farmers,it's urgent to connect them to nature in a playful way, creating bee hotels, fairy houses and seed bombs.
 
Are you ready to become an urban farmer?

Arthur Groeneveld

Cityplot

A Guy Named Arturo, the alias of Amsterdam/Berlin-based creative consultant Arthur Groeneveld (1986), is an interdisciplinary one-man-show offering brand support, communications, art direction, trend forecasting, and creative research. 

aguynamedarturo.com

Carl Goes wants travellers to become citizens of the cities they visit. The book opens up the city of Berlin to curious and creative people. Featuring six interviews with city residents including start-up business owners, illustrators, a food blogger, an instrument maker, a techno music legend and an entrepreneur, together with cherry-picked recommendations from locals, Carl Goes Berlin includes tips about where Berliners go to eat, drink and network. There’s also a section on how to go about getting lost in the city to encourage readers to discover Berlin for themselves. For those who need to work during their trip or entrepreneurs thinking about starting up a company, there is a section about working in the city, which includes recommendations of the best co-working spaces in Berlin and how to get involved in the city’s start-up scene.
 
Sascha Mengerink - Carl Goes Publisher - tell Trend Tablet his five favorite addresses with a nomadic flair in Berlin:

For co-working and entrepreneurial spirit

A Berlin hub for urban nomads, betahaus rents out desks for a few days at a time or by the month. Hipsters and start-up business owners can regularly be found at a desk or in the quirky café complete with a laptop and a latte, discussing a new project or business idea. The Friday morning networking betabreakfast and regular workshops with an entrepreneurial flavour are also popular affairs for city nomads.

www.betahaus.com

For being outdoors and a sense of freedom

Nowhere captures the outdoorsy Berliner spirit better than Tempelhofer Flughafen, the city’s abandoned airfield that locals have fiercely protected so it remains as a huge park for free-time-fun. While groups of friends picnic on the grass in the summer, everyone from skateboarders and skate-sailors to rollerbladers and cyclists partake in loops around the runway.

www.thf-berlin.de

For hitting the hay

Berlin has its fair share of hip hotels, but Hüttenpalast is one of the most original, where an array of caravans and cabins of different shapes and sizes inhabit an old vacuum cleaner factory in the neighbourhood of Neukölln. It’s like summer every day in the charming indoor campsite, with fairy lights strung from indoor trees and comfy seating areas for debriefing on the day’s city wanderings.

www.huettenpalast.de
 
For culture

Berlin is steeped in history and culture and there are plenty of high-brow cultural institutions across the city to experience it. Piano Salon Christophori, however, is a completely different kettle of fish from the big-name establishments. Tucked away in a quiet Wedding neighbourhood, Piano Salon Christophori is a piano repair shop by day, transforming into an intimate classical music venue by dusk.

www.konzertfluegel.com

For eating and mingling

Café culture reigns supreme in Berlin and the city’s famous work/life balance means there’s plenty of time for long lunches and café pit stops. For those who like to discover somewhere a little different over their hot beverage, the Tadshikische Teestube is a Tajik tearoom squirreled away in an old Prussian palace. The tea room is all about low tables surrounded by colourful cushions, and city wayfarers feel right at home here.

www.tadshikische-teestube.de

Carl Goes Berlin is available to buy online

New Tendency is an interdisciplinary lifestyle and design studio based in Berlin Neukölln with a Bauhaus background. Besides having their own collection, the studio focusses on collaborations with young architects and designers and in this way becomes a platform for creative talent from Berlin and around the globe.

Arthur Groeneveld had a short Q&A with Manuel Goller, founder of New Tendency.

What are the main qualities of Berlin when you’re running a design studio?

Being part of Berlin’s creatives scene gives us the opportunity to work from a thriving and international environment. Especially the most established of all creatives disciplines in Berlin, the art scene, gives us a lot of inspiration and provides interesting possibilities to collaborate. Besides that, Berlin provides this pool of young, creative people from all over the world providing fresh ideas and visions.

So many different things happen and are possible at the same time in Berlin, combine this with its eventful history and rapid changes and what you get is this unique place. This variety is for example visible if you compare the various districts: these are separate worlds lying next to each other. You can start your day with a business breakfast at the Soho House rooftop poolside terrace in Mitte and ending the day having kebab for dinner in Kreuzberg - same city, different worlds.

How does New Tendency reflect the DNA of Berlin?

Living in this city is very casual and keeps your mind young, the flexibility and fascinating modularity that Berlin provides is what we try to show in our work. Visually, New Tendency's designs are not per se typical for Berlin. However, the city does give a certain creative freedom to focus on ideas and a framework to create such designs. Berlin creates a context for our designs that wouldn’t be possible when we would have lived in another city.

The ongoing dialogue between different artistic discplines and a certain energy: that makes Berlin the perfect place to live. The people living here inspire me because of their diversity: Wether it’s the passion for food and therefor opening a new restaurant or working for example at a start-up: Berliners tend to do something new and on their own.

Berlin in 20 years?

A famous saying by Karl Scheffler goes like this: ‘Berlin is a city condemned forever to becoming and never to being. I’m convinced Berlin will turn into a city which is even more international, economically more grown but at the same time safeguarding its unique soul. The city is aware of having such soul, a soul of creative freedom.

Arthur Groeneveld

www.newtendency.de

A Guy Named Arturo, the alias of Amsterdam/Berlin-based creative consultant Arthur Groeneveld (1986), is an interdisciplinary one-man-show offering brand support, communications, art direction, trend forecasting, and creative research. 

aguynamedarturo.com

One of the wonders of Berlin are the numerous urban gardens, public participatory parks, guerrilla gardens and other green spaces. The Berliners simply love the fact they live in one of the world’s greenest cities. They are willing to protect and expand these green spaces and are very much open to new ways of making the city even more environmentally friendly.
 
The desire to preserve and expand green oases, coupled with the eagerness to follow sustainable and alternative paths, is turning the former industrial city of Berlin more and more into a green metropolis. Renowned examples are projects such as the neighbourhood-run Prinzessinnengarten in Kreuzberg and the community gardens at the former airport Tempelhof, which was turned into a Berlin’s largest public park in 2010.
 
The latest addition to this movement is Little Wood, a temporary garden in the centre of Berlin that wants to break up our idea of ​​city and nature as separate perceived systems and help to integrate nature into the urban fabric. Initiators Contemporary Food Lab, GRAFT Architects and Humboldt University state: ‘Berlin is in a time of dynamic transformation.

Empty lots are disappearing, buildings are being converted and remodeled. How can society be more involved in urban development? Little Wood provides space to answer such questions and is a experiment in the exploration of urban nature’.’
 
Little Wood is open until August 31 and offers a varied program including workshops, picnics, lectures, film screenings, dinner clubs and concerts.

Arthur Groeneveld

www.littlewoodberlin.org

A Guy Named Arturo, the alias of Amsterdam/Berlin-based creative consultant Arthur Groeneveld (1986), is an interdisciplinary one-man-show offering brand support, communications, art direction, trend forecasting, and creative research. 

aguynamedarturo.com
 

The rediscovered trading system and conscious food projects are both hot topics in Berlin. Unexpectedly, Malin Elmlid created an exceptional example in which she combines both: The Bread Exchange. Typical for Berlin, this project is not about money but touches upon different values: trust, quality and consciousness. Bread is a global good, not bound by any borders and something to be shared.
 

Malin started The Bread Exchange in 2009. Frustrated about not being able find good white bread in Berlin, she started first researching and then baking from her Berlin apartment and during travels white yeast-free sourdough bread herself. ‘A good bread only needs three ingredients. Flour, water and salt. With only 3 ingredients it is crucial that they are the best quality. Then there is no need for yeast or other things to boost the bread, the only thing you need is time.’
 

Malin trades this unique bread - that takes more than twenty-four hours to bake - with people for things that they can do better than she does. Think: a special honey from your hometown, offering culinary products, guitar lessons, travel accommodation, bike-repair vouchers or for example 2kg of quinces from your grannies garden. Malin: ‘what I see is an interest to get stories and find some kind of value in what we eat because there isn’t if we buy it from the supermarket. Things just taste better if we know where they are from.’

Since The Bread Exchange started, Malin traded over 1,400 sourdoughs worldwide, places of trade range from the USA to Belgium and from her hometown Berlin to places like Marocco and even Afghanistan.
 

For ‘Bread Exchange’, the book documenting Malin’s stories and travels set to be published October 2014, Malin used the same procedure: the majority of production, photography and travels was done through trading as well.
 

Arthur Groeneveld

thebreadexchange.com

A Guy Named Arturo, the alias of Amsterdam/Berlin-based creative consultant Arthur Groeneveld (1986), is an interdisciplinary one-man-show offering brand support, communications, art direction, trend forecasting, and creative research. 
 

aguynamedarturo.com



Within the next years a new anti-commercial and communal district will arise along the banks of the Spree River. The development, Holzmarkt, gives space for change and experiments in the innercity of Berlin.
 
Holzmarkt will be a unique cultural town on the former premises of the legendary Bar25 and includes an ecosustainable village for artists and craftsman, ateliers, public park, boardwalk along the Spree, hotel, ateliers, music studios, a club and theatre, a restaurant and kids club. The architectural language holds on to Berlin's typical signature aesthetic of organic structures: ever- changing, artistic, informal and mismatched wooden constructions and facades, inside or alongside industrial surfaces.
 
The project is a pioneer in these changing times. The Holzmarkt will be a place in the city where all involved will be able to inspire other space creators who want to boost co-creation of ideas or business models but also tries to set a new standard and be an inspirational location for future projects similar to this one. With the idea of sustainism, where local collaborations and the sharing economy will be more and more important, the Holzmarkt could become a valuable contribution to the city of Berlin. It is an organically developed collective, on a local scale wherein the enormous diversity of the German capital is concentrated on one place within this bigger metropolis.

The city of Berlin has more confidence in giving space to bottom-up initiatives opposite to cities like London, Paris or Amsterdam. What other cities can learn from Berlin, is this more open attitude towards innovative ideas and initiatives. Projects like Holzmarkt are grown more organic instead of being placed top-down in the middle of a city redevelopment area. Berlin tirelessly evolves, fed by new energies that shape its surface, keeping its historical roots intact. As Karl Scheffler said, “Berlin is a city condemned always to become, and never to be.”
 
Arthur Groeneveld
 
www.holzmarkt.com

A Guy Named Arturo, the alias of Amsterdam/Berlin-based creative consultant Arthur Groeneveld (1986), is an interdisciplinary one-man-show offering brand support, communications, art direction, trend forecasting, and creative research. 
 
www.aguynamedarturo.com

The last twenty years Berlin had this image of a city reinventing itself day after day – and had not, and did not want to have, anything in common with the grandeur of Paris or the glamour of London. It seems times are changing: a more international crowd finds its way to the German capital looking for upscale shopping, quality restaurants and luxurious leisure facilities. This crowd is now best served in the ‘New West’ – but still in a way which is true to that special Berlin flair.

 
The area around West Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm, the city’s answer to Paris’s Avenue des Champs Elysees, is in fashion again for the first time since Germany’s reunification as a young and international crowd finds their way from the trendy east to the traditionally more classical west.

Centerpiece of this movement is the rehabilitated Bikini complex, a cluster of buildings between Kurfürstendamm and the Zoologischer Garten. Although the facades are rather dull, these iconic buildings are in fact one of the few preserved contemporary witnesses of Berlin’s turbulent history during the post-war period of the 1950s. The group of buildings is now converted into a ‘urban jungle’ containing an edgy mix of stores including a new concept store branch by Andreas Murkudis, a roof-top park, restaurants, a cinema, entertainment facilities and the 25hours Bikini Hotel.

The name Bikini Berlin comes from the name Bikinihaus, which is how local Berliners affectionately christened the building in the 1950s. An open-sided storey framed by columns on the second floor once separated the building into one upper and one lower area. For the Berlin locals, the two-tier architecture, which today is fully glazed, reminded them of the daring new swimwear fashion of that time, the bikini.

Shining star of this ‘city in within a city’ is the 25hours Bikini Hotel. A typical Berlin mismatched interior by Werner Aisslinger fills the spaces and infuses east Berlin flea market chic into the commercial centre of the west: industrial exposed concrete, vintage finds, soft sofa landscapes, hundreds of plants and hammocks - a discordance that makes Berlin what it is. It’s location recalls another typical Berlin phenomenon as well: nature meets culture. The Zoo and the huge Tiergarten park are based on one side of the hotel and the city and it’s cultural facilities on the other.

The Berlin-based studio Aisslinger conceptualised the 25Hours Bikini Hotel in close collaboration with other local influencers: he invited the duo Bless to create a chill-out corner, worked together with set designer Sybille Oellerich to decorate the rooftop bar and asked publisher Gestalten to set up shop in the lobby. In this way, the hotel becomes a flexible, inspirational and sustainable urban retreat where visiting guests and Berliners alike can mingle and chat.

Arthur Groeneveld
 
www.25hours-hotels.com

www.bikiniberlin.de

A Guy Named Arturo, the alias of Amsterdam/Berlin-based creative consultant Arthur Groeneveld (1986), is an interdisciplinary one-man-show offering brand support, communications, art direction, trend forecasting, and creative research. 

www.aguynamedarturo.com