Located in Berlin’s Westend on Masurenallee between Theodor-Heuss-Platz and the big bus station (ZOB) are:
RBB TV Centre (RBB Fernsehzentrum)
Broadcast House (Haus des Rundfunks)
Berlin Radio Tower (Berliner Funkturm)
Messedamm underpass (Unterführung)
International Congress Centre (Internationales-Congress-Centrum, ICC)
The entire length is easy to walk for under 1 kilometre, from Theodor-Heuss-Platz (U2 station) to the intersection of Masurenallee and Messedamm. The area has provided good memories as I’ve stayed twice here before.
RBB TV Centre (RBB Fernsehzentrum): completed in 1970 and used by the former West Berlin broadcaster SFB, an important voice for West Berliners in a city cut off and surrounded by the DDR. The building is now listed as an architectural monument. To the right in the background is the radio tower.
The beautifully distinctive Broadcast House (Haus des Rundfunks) was completed in 1931 with designs by Hans Poelzig. This building is also listed as heritage and is home to a number of RBB radio channels. Building access within is only for registered employees of RBB.
The Berlin Radio Tower (Berliner Funkturm) opened in 1926 on the grounds of the Berlin Trade Fair (Messe Berlin) and is nicknamed “the lanky lad” (der lange Lulatsch). Although the tower is no longer used for broadcast and presently closed to visitors, the structure is under heritage protection.
The Messedamm tunnel or underpass (Unterführung) is used as pedestrian and bicyclist passage underneath two very busy roads: the east-west Masurenallee and north-south Messedamm. Built primarily for access to the Messe Berlin, there is access to the big bus station (ZOB) and an S-Bahn Ringbahn station nearby. The setting with those orange columns and walls has been used as television and film backdrops. Compared to past archival images, all the bulbs from the large circular overhead lamps are either out or off.
As a giant addition to Messe Berlin, the International Congress Centre (Internationales-Congress-Centrum, ICC) was completed in 1979 with designs by U. Schüler-Witte & R. Schüler. The nickname given by Berliners for this structure is “Quasseldampfer” (chatterbox steamboat) or “Raumschiff” (spaceship). While the Messe Berlin remains open for trade fairs, the ICC awaits “renewal in dry dock.”
I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 14 June 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.
Once a Berlin terminal station with trains arriving from Hamburg, the present-day renovated structure houses the Hamburger Bahnhof Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart (Hamburg Station National Gallery of Contemporary Art), which is a member of the State Museums of Berlin organization.
The museum opens its doors to the public for free beginning today and through the entire weekend. Friday is sunny and mid-20s with a slight breeze: a beaut of a day. By 6pm, the crowds are out and about in force: there’s a debut of a brand new exhibition, and there’s also a massive party out front.
These following three artworks are my highlights from today.
(Please caress this sign when emotions occur.) “Emotionales Denkmal” (mehr in Emotional Memorial), by German artist Hans Peter Adamski, 2012.
“Go Home”, by Syrian-German artist Manaf Halbouni, 2019.
Among some graffiti on a wall in Dresden is an Arabic line at the bottom: “go home”. But someone has added at right the word “don’t”, so that the more welcoming line now reads “don’t go home.”
“Bergama Stereo – Berlin Fragment”, by Turkish artist Cevdet Erek. Incorporated into the architectural construction are sound speakers playing a mix of techno music, guttural sounds, and bass-drum pieces selected from the Balkans area, the Middle East, and Turkey. As a “segment” or fragment, the much larger artwork alludes to the Pergamon Altar, which was brought over from Turkey to Berlin in the late 19th-century.
Video duration 1m42s.
I made all images and video with an iPhone15 on 13 June 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.
In Berlin’s government district is a patch of ground – a garden, really, with tall trees and a place that’s easy to overlook. The official name is “Parliament of Trees Against War and Violence”, begun by artist Ben Wagin in 1990.
Wagin (1930-2021) began planting trees on land where the former Berlin Wall used to run near the historic Reichstag government building, as authorities began dismantling the physical wall. What remains of Wagin’s experiment is a piece of ground that acts as both memorial to what the Wall represented and fractured, and an aspiration for both modern Germany and Europe.
Of the many trees in this space, 16 of them represent the 16 modern federal states of Germany. There are also slabs of granite on which are engraved the names of the victims of the Wall. The “back” wall is painted with murals and messages, and in between are little paths and flower beds. I think Wagin also wants to remind us that in many parts in Berlin and throughout Germany, the former Wall dividing the city and the two former nations, respectively, have been reclaimed by nature.
In 2017, the memorial park was added to the City-State of Berlin’s list of protected monuments. Administered by the Stiftung Berliner Mauer (Berlin Wall Foundation), the Parliament of Trees is free of charge, open Sundays from 12pm to 5pm in the months between April and October inclusive.
1945 End of World War II. 1961 The Berlin Wall goes up. 1989 The Berlin Wall comes down.
“Teilerfolg” (partial success).
“Wer zu spät kommt, den bestraft das Leben.” (Life punishes those who come too late. -Mikhail Gorbachev, 1989.)
“Das Fundament eines gemeinsamen europäischen Hauses muss eine intake Umwelt sein.” (The foundation of a common European home must be an intact environment.)
Original segment of the Berlin Wall: “Unbekannte Opfer” (unnamed victims).
Original segment of the Berlin Wall: “Mauer Bruch” (wall break).
I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 8 June 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.
At a traffic circle in Berlin stands a concrete sculpture whose meaning is a criticism of excessive consumer culture and the glorification of cars. In 1987, this might not have been out of place in staunchly anti-capitalist East Berlin. Instead, German artist Wolf Vostell (1932-1998) approved the sculpture’s installation in West Berlin at Rathenauplatz, near the border between “Ortsteil” Halensee and Grunewald. The occasion was Berlin’s 750th founding anniversary as a city, as part of an extended street with sculptures for the grand anniversary.
Vostell took two full-sized Cadillacs and encased them in concrete. The title is “Two Concrete Cadillacs in the Form of the Naked Maja”, an allusion to Goya’s painting “The Naked Maja”. Vostell explained the placement of the sculpture in the traffic circle as “a dance of car drivers around the golden calf.” At the time, the artwork proved to some controversial at best and objectionable at worst, but the sculpture has stuck around to 2025, while the objections slowly aged out and died. Some folks who loved their cars apparently didn’t like to be criticized or excoriated.
Welp, I’m now a fan, and I’ll look for his 1970 cement sculpture in Cologne when I’m back there in a few weeks.
Facing northwest. The sprayed-on sentiment is recent, but absolutely agreeable.
Facing southwest.
Facing northeast.
Facing southeast. The sentiment is repeated on the other side, which makes it doubly agreeable.
I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 7 June 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.
In northwest Berlin, the Zitadelle Spandau (Spandau Citadel) might have one of the oldest structures in Berlin with the 36-metre Julius Tower going back to the 13th-century. The Citadel is also home to a variety of arts and crafts, including a collection of sculptures which used to be in Berlin’s public spaces.
But I’m here for the bats 🦇 because in the basement of one of the buildings, there’s a “bat-cave” for education and preservation. It’s worth remembering that bats, like bees and birds, are excellent pollinators.
The walk up to Zitadelle Spandau.
I’ve found it: Fledermauskeller (lit., bat basement) 🦇
One of two bats on view: the Egyptian fruit bat (Nilflughund).
The other type of bat on view: Seba’s short-tailed bat (Brillenblattnase).
Looking for food scraps on the floor.
The occasional roost.
👆🏽😍 🦇
10 seconds.
I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 9 June 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.
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