25T08 Berlin’s big bounty

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E07, B02.

In a city of 4 million, what is there in Berlin I haven’t already visited or discovered? I had intuitively guessed after my 1st visit in 2002 that Berlin would present herself as a grand lifelong project. It’s true. So, the real question is: what are her myths and secrets?

Here’s a glimpse of my to-do/ask list :

  • Bauhaus in Bernau, just outside Berlin to the northeast
  • Peter Behrens
  • What’s new (& showing) at C/O Berlin and at the Museum for Photography
  • Albert Einstein
  • Margot Friedländer
  • Alfred Grenander
  • Humboldt brothers: Wilhelm & Alexander
  • Potsdam’s grandeur, just outside Berlin to the southwest
  • Railway lines: Friedhofsbahn; Siemensbahn, to be reactivated as new S-Bahn S6
  • Karl Friedrich Schinkel
  • Franz Schwechten
  • Max Skladanowsky

Poor but sexy. Plain but complicated. Over 2 decades have passed since my 1st visit, but the sight of the glass and steel monument to trains and the sound of the three-tone closing-doors signal on the city’s S-Bahn are quintessential to identifying how I feel and remember this city.

( I spent the afternoon gazing and absorbing contemporary 20th- and 21st-century art at the former Hamburger Bahnhof, near Berlin’s central station. What I saw and experienced there is for another time. )

Hamburger Bahnhof Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart / Hamburger Bahnhof National Gallery of Contemporary Art.
Berlin Hauptbahnhof (central station): north plaza at Europaplatz.
Berlin Hauptbahnhof (central station), facing north to Europaplatz.
38-sec audio, southbound S-Bahn S2 train at Gesundbrunnen station. The older rolling stock (series 481 and 482) has the much beloved three-tone door-closing signal, which occurs at 19-seconds. “… (S2) nach Lichtenrade … S2 … zurück bleiben bitte …”

I made all images and audio above with an iPhone15 on 15 May 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

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