Above/featured: “Göttin” (goddess), by AlfAlfA, also known as Nicolás Sánchez, for One Wall 2017. Photo, 17 Jun 2025 (P15).
In continuation of high spirits and enthusiastic support of leading choices, I’m very grateful to significant time spent:
Above: Berlin S-Bahn S15 icon, from Wikimedia, by users F84 (original) and Minoa (rework).
For me, living memories of countless times in Berlin since 2002 include public transport with her U-Bahn and S-Bahn trains and routes. Like many, I never want that S-Bahn three-tone door-closing signal to go away, but that only comes with the older Baureihe 481-482 vehicles used for the trains, which will go away with the requirement to comply with European Union regulations.
On my first visit in 2002, I immediately asked: why isn’t there a U-Bahn connection or an S-Bahn connection with the shiny Berlin central train station? The U5 finally answered the first question in 2020, whereas the S-Bahn connection is coming up in 2026. The S-Bahn line provisionally labelled S15 is part of the larger long-term S21 project to connect the north and south parts of the S-Bahn Ring with the central station, and helping to alleviate traffic along the existing north-south S1-S2 route. In late-2025, news came out with a scheduled opening: on 28 March 2026, the S15 will open for public service between Gesundbrunnen and Hauptbahnhof via Wedding, although I’m unsure why the latest map update doesn’t mark S15 service between Westhafen and Hauptbahnhof; see below.
Announcement items in German: RBB24 — Entwicklungsstadt.
In this coming summer of 2026, I’m looking forward to seeing how this works out.
Above: Museumsinsel U-Bahn station entry-exit ‘A’. Photo, 17 May 2025 (P15).
The Berlin U-Bahn metro station Museumsinsel adjacent to the world renowned Museum Island is located on the U5 line which connects the city’s central station (Hauptbahnhof) with Alexanderplatz and the city’s eastern neighbourhoods. Construction for the station began in 2012 and lasted over 8 years. For the station interior at track level, architect Max Dudler was inspired by Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s 1815–1816 design of the stage for the Mozart opera “Die Sauberflöte” (The Magic Flute). For the appearance of the Queen of the Night, Schinkel imagined a large dome-like space like the overhead starry night sky. Over each of the two tracks in the U-Bahn station, Dudler designed a dark blue barrel-shaped vault embedded with thousands of white point-sources of light.
The fully-completed U5 extension from Hauptbahnhof to Alexanderplatz opened to the public on 4 December 2020, which at long last connected the Hauptbahnhof with Berlin’s U-Bahn city transport system. The Museumsinsel station on the U5 line opened on 9 July 2021. In addition to the city’s bus network, the station now allowed visitors to use the U-Bahn metro to reach the Museum Island complex, inscribed by UNESCO as World Heritage Site in 1999.
Artist and architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781–1841) has his “fingerprints” on many of the city’s early- to middle 19th-century architecture, including in the immediate vicinity of the station the Neue Wache (New Guard House), Schlossbrücke (Castle Bridge), Friedrichswerder Church, Bauakademie (Building Academy), and the Altes Museum (Old Museum).
Above: “Wrapped Reichstag 1995–2025” light show.
In 1995, the artist duo Christo & Jeanne-Claude carried out a bold but contentious project by covering Berlin’s landmark Reichstag parliament building. Plans for the project had taken over 20 years, even though the artwork had always meant to be temporary and all expenses had been covered without corporate sponsors. Over 5 million visited in a period of 12 days in the summer of 1995 to look at the undulating “silver dream” in the German capital city. The timing was ideal. After reunification of the two Germanys in 1990, the new home of the federal parliament would be Berlin’s Reichstag. Renovations to the building began in the autumn of 1995 with the federal parliament opening in the spring of 1999.
From 9 to 22 June 2025, the Reichstag building was illuminated nightly with a light show in a 30-year anniversary tribute to the famous 1995 artwork. In a 20- to 30-minute cycle, the light-show appeared to first envelop the building in silver fabric. The fabric cover flapped in artificial breeze, before the cover lost its shape and fell onto the ground at the base of the building. The free-of-charge light show began shortly after sunset at about 930pm and continued until 1am. Whatever Christo and Jeanne-Claude chose to cover and transform, their art works posed questions of perception, origins, shape, functionality, and permanence.
• DW: Germany Arts
• Visit Berlin
If I have 3 days or 7 weeks to spend in the German capital city, I make time to stop at Dussmann.
Conveniently located near Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse train station, the “department store of culture” offers more than simply German-language books to serve fiction read-needs or magazines to gauge what’s happening near and far. There’s a separate English language bookshop, as well as an enormous catalog of music, film, and television. The space is also large enough to hold some cultural events. Naturally, there’s a “BerlinShop” for my postcard and your souvenir requirements. And because it’s Berlin, they stay open past 11pm Monday to Saturday.
Dussmann is an important place and piece to the extensive conceptual mosaic I’ve created over the years with the amount of time spent in Berlin since 2002. I never regret any visit to Dussmann. I always regret what’s about to happen: my wallet gets a little lighter, and that I somehow have the massive fortitude to leave with “only” a handful of books.
Completed in 1997, the lower 5 floors of the 8-storey building is all about the Kulturkaufhaus, whereas the upper 3 floors are reserved for office space which includes the Dussmann Group. Photo, 27 May 2025.
At the far end on the ground floor (Erdgeschoss) is the sphinx of Egypt’s Queen Hatshepsut (about 1475 BCE), on permanent loan from the Egyptian Museum of Berlin. The inscrutable statue greets visitors to the café below, as well as the English language bookshop at right. Photo, 27 May 2025.
From the 2nd floor (erste Obergeschoss) this view along the central aisle shows how the combination of natural light from above, mix of artificial lighting and colours, and hanging leafage provides a welcoming atmosphere, which undoubtedly makes it easier for customers to spend. Photo, 30 May 2025.
“Under Berlin’s skies, there’s only one Dussmann.” On the 2nd floor, the theatre banner-like display highlights the movie and television section, and if the quote is indeed from Wim Wenders, it’s an interesting play on the title “Der Himmel ĂĽber Berlin”, a film Wenders directed in 1987. In the television section, I found DVDs for early-seasons (series) of New Zealand’s “The Brokenwood Mysteries”, distributed in Germany as “Brokenwood – Mord in Neuseeland”. Photo, 30 May 2025.
Afternoon break at CafĂ© NĂ©nom with coffee and book: “The Wall” (“Die Wand”), a work of fiction published in 1963 and written by Austrian Marien Haushofer. Photo, 27 May 2025.
• BVG U-Bahn U6 train to Friedrichstrasse station.
• S-Bahn Berlin train: S1, S2, S25, S26; S3, S5, S7, or S9 to Friedrichstrasse station.
• Leaving Friedrichstrasse station, it’s a short 120-metre (400-ft) walk south to the shop.
• BVG Tram M1 or 12 to stop “S+U Friedrichstrasse Bhf”.
Monday to Friday: 9h–0h; Saturday: 9h–2330h; Sunday (BerlinShop only): 13h-18h.
( View this location in OpenStreetMaps )
I received no prior support or subsequent compensation for this piece. I made all above images with a P15 on 27 and 30 May 2025. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-wj0.
Fotoeins Fotografie 