Urban Nation Berlin

URBAN NATION is an international collective of (street-)artists, based on Berlin's Bülow Street. 

True to form, they turned their premises into a spectacular, eye-catching work of art: 

Lake Lietzensee

Lake Lietzensee is smack in the middle of Berlin. In Charlottenburg, to be precise. 

Lake Lietzensee and its surrounding park is one of my favorite Berlin green spaces - next to Tiergarten - because walking through it is like walking through a hybrid of Miss Havisham's backyard and the lavishly landscaped park Delphine Seyrig jaunts along in L'annee derniere a Marienbad ...

... however, where Tiergarten feels like a forest, Lake Lietzensee really does feel like a proper park, and come to think of it - it is one of the rare green spaces in central Berlin that give you that feeling as more often than not, there's no landscaping to speak of at all in Berlin parks and so the word park is actually a misnomer.

Being a great deal smaller than Tiergarten, Lake Lietzensee has the added advantage of having virtually no tourists as they don't usually venture to this part of town. They have no idea what they're missing! For Charlottenburg is not only the district with the most magnificent period buildings - and that is especially true for the area around Lake Lietzensee! - it is also one of Berlin's most affluent. As a result, the variety of shops, bars, and cafes can easily hold a candle to Kreuzberg, Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg.

Here's Lake Lietzensee & some of the beautiful buildings that surround it (please click on each image for the gallery to open): 

The LUX

The LUX is the latest in what seems like an endless string of luxury coops to be completed here in Berlin. According to the website of of the real estate developer, "nearly all apartments have sold". The building is located smack in the middle of the government district and features a doorman and concierge service. 

However, with its striking architecture (Axthelm & Rolvien), the LUX is one of the more interesting apartment buildings in that area: 

Europa City/ Berlin-Spandau Canal

One of the things I love about Berlin is, that it's so vast and so diverse that you can be a Berlin citizen for years and still discover new areas, places and hideaways. This happened to me today when, setting out to explore Europa City - as the area around Central Station will be known once completed - I discovered the Berlin-Spandau Canal, which runs along the former Wall, and which has a lot going for it ...

 ... the Canal begins at Humboldt Harbour, opposite the Hamburger Bahnhof (Museum for Contemporary Art) ...  ... please click on each image to enlarge: 

... right behind the Museum (and easily visible from this side of the Canal), there's a whole new neighbourhood in the making, consisting of apartment buildings, office blocks, converted warehouses, and so on ...

... while this side of the Canal, you walk along (more or less) landscaped paths and green spaces, tracing what used to be the Berlin Wall ...

... going past the old Invalid's Cemetery, with plenty of tombs of Prussian generals fighting in the 1866 and 1871 wars as well as in the Great one ...

... while at the far end, yet more apartment buildings are springing up seemingly by the minute ...

... with the ballet of cranes in the future Europa City visible in the distance ...

Humboldt Harbour Nr. 1/ Price Waterhouse Coopers Building

Dubbed Berlin's Greenest Office Building, the Price Waterhouse Coopers Building on Humboldt Harbour Nr.1 opened just a few days ago to much fanfare. Completed in less than 2 years, it throws up the question why this privately developed building (by Dutch real estate developers OVG), which after all houses well over 800 employees, could be completed in such a short amount of time, while publicly financed projects in this city that are similar in size take a great deal longer to be finished. 

The developers (OVG) take great pride in the fact that the building is extremely energy efficient and very well insulated. Furthermore, every room in the building is differently shaped with all windows also being different in size, thus giving each room its special atmosphere and ambiance. 

Every floor of the building has a different theme, all related to the elements earth, water, fire, and air. 

Though Price Waterhouse Coopers have already moved in, the building's surrounds are not yet 100% completed. Once they are, they'll complement the adjoining beach bars, thus contributing to the 'harbour feeling'.  

The Capital Beach Bar, as seen from the terrace of the Price Waterhouse Coopers Building:

Around Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg

Not that long ago, Kreuzberg used to be a hub for immigrants, left-wing activists, the socially disadvantaged, the LGBT community, and everybody else who felt they didn't quite fit in, while neighboring Friedrichshain was a completely derelict area with many of its period buildings going to pieces. 

Though all this still applies - to a degree, at least - fact remains that Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg has since mutated into one of Berlin's priciest, and choicest, neighborhoods where new, expensive, apartment blocks are going up on a constant basis and more and more international companies set up shop in converted warehouses and new, swanky office buildings ... 

 ...such as, for instance, BASF, located in a former warehouses, now fully converted, extended, and tarted up:

... or the newly erected Universal Music Building (to the left), facing Oberbaum Bridge and the MTV Building to its right:

... the Mercedes Benz Tower, which has recently been completed:

... the Living Levels apartment building, for which last existing parts of the Berlin Wall were torn down under great protest:

... through the arches of Oberbaum Bridge, Jonathan Borofsky's Molecule Man can be spotted in the back, next to the Allianz Tower:

... Oberbaum Bridge, as featured in a variety of movies, most famously in The Unknown, starring Liam Neeson and Diane Krüger:

... another converted warehouse, now housing offices of Berlin's thriving start-up community:

... this is the other side of Kreuzberg - Tempest, an anarchist library:

... or this - an area full of interesting street art:

... but Kreuzberg is also home to some lovely parks - Hasenheide, Görlitzer Park (though its reputation has somewhat suffered due to blatant drug dealing) , etc. - or, here, Victoria Park:

... then again, there are fabulously restored period buildings (... though the graffiti on its front door is proof that the gentrification of the area is met by considerable resistance):

... and once more, the inevitable Oberbaum Bridge with the Allianz Tower and the Treptowers in the back. Right behind the bridge is where Europe's last slum used to be - so dubbed by a journalist - a plot of land occupied by a mix of drop-outs, homeless people, and so-called Blockuppants: