travel destinations
I was 14—the age when dreams are your best friends and an
uninhibited excitement about the possibilities of the world courses
through each vein and guides your every step—when I was first
enchanted by the streets of Berlin. It was on a visit familiar to most
young girls: a trip to my oma´s new urban haven. Overcome by
dull life in a small town she too, was summoned by the siren that is
this cosmopolitan city, even after 65 years. We walked, she and I,
down every street in the former West Berlin, filling every corner of our
minds´ eye with the dramatic energy and lights of the theatre and
the historic and cultural mystique offered by museum shows and
the safety and anonymity of the crowds. Guided by the shadowy,
exciting promises of old films and phonographs, I longed to find a
magic door or a time tunnel to the Berlin of the 1920s to meet the
artists, writers and dancers who celebrated culture and life at the
clubs and cafés.
Throughout the following years I hitchhiked to Berlin to visit
famous clubs such as Dschungel or SO 36 (at that time run by the
artist Martin Kippenberger). But because my passion was for the
world of dance, I also spent hours hypnotized by the sublime flight
of ballet dancers performing at the Deutsche Staatsoper. Just the
slight chance of catching a concert conducted by Herbert von
Karajan at the Philharmonie, built by Hans Scharoun, was the sole
mission of many journeys. It was not a matter of if, but only when I
would land up here.
Life led me down many paths, but in 2004 I moved from Los
Angeles to Berlin and I am often overcome with raw emotion:
There is no other city where the metaphor of the phoenix rising
from the ashes is so appropriate. In only one hundred years the
city was reborn several times—through the Empire of the Roaring
Twenties, the Weimar Republic, the rise and fall of the Third Reich,
the complete destruction of World War II, rebuilding in the 1950s, the
rise of the Wall and finally the reunification. It´s the scars, still visible
and perceptible, that make it such an outstanding and interesting
city. Many of my friends moved here just after the Wall came down,
and they were part of the dynamic process of East and West Berlin
growing together. But I was lucky enough to arrive before everything
had been completed—so that I wouldn´t be just a witness but a
participant in the new cityscape.
When I return from my travels, I always come home to new shops,
cafés, restaurants and galleries that have blossomed in the once
deathly-grey streets of the former East Berlin. With just pennies in
their pockets, a new generation´s creative spirit enriches the city´s
cultural life with outstanding architecture, exquisite museums and
a devotion to pursuing meaningful questions—and it´s this
level and diversity of culture that is the deciding element
regarding where I chose to live.
The choices in Berlin are tremendous. I am especially proud
of the absolutely beautiful, subtle and timeless reconstruction
of the Museumsinsel (Museum Island), completed last year
with the opening of the Neues Museum, rebuilt by David
Chipperfield, as well as Daniel Libeskind´s Jewish Museum,
another masterpiece. Of course there is also the elegant
Neue Nationalgalerie by Mies van der Rohe, as well as our
Gemäldegalerie, which boasts a refined art collection. But
one of my favorites, not often trafficked by tourists, is The
Helmut Newton Foundation. It is a beautiful expression of the
spirit of the photographer, who loved Berlin despite the fact
that he had to flee from the Nazis in 1938. He never lived in
Germany again, but he still brought his life´s work back to the
city just before he died.
feb + mar 2010
