Archive for the ‘Berlin’ Category

Potsdammer Platz

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

Potsdammer Platz by Paul Swanson

I absolutely love some of the major architecture and city planning that Berlin has to offer. Berlin has seized the opportunity of post-war reconstruction and evidently has not looked back. Potsdammer Platz has to be my most favourite modern city square; it’s expansive, bold and modern. Potsdammer Platz gives you a sense of urban enormity yet it feels open and you can see the sky.

Parking Space

Saturday, December 29th, 2007

Parking Space

This car is not making a u-turn. It’s design is such that it can park perpendicular to the curb. This kind of mind-bending efficiency reminds me that Berlin is almost a world away from Kiev, where sidewalks double as traffic lanes.

It comes in a 500ml!

Friday, December 28th, 2007

500ml Glass Coke

Yes. Here in Germany, perhaps one of the most civilised places on the planet, one can enjoy Coca-rotgut-Cola from a 500ml glass bottle. Just think, one less bottle destined to plague our descendants as a toxic sludge of former polymers for a thousand years; and of course goes without stating the irrefutable truth that Coke always tastes better from glass. This bottle was later laid to rest in a glass recycling bin conveniently located by the city of Berlin. God bless dem Deutschen volke.

Architecture Junkies

Friday, December 28th, 2007

Academy for the Arts, Berlin

We’re in Berlin over Christmas and I’m starting to think I completely missed my calling in life. The architecture here is amazing. Berlin is an amazing mixture of the old, new and the future. Much of Berlin’s skyline was devastated during the final days of European operations during World War II and since then much has been restored and extended, often with a very modern approach.