—Cultural city

Arts venues: more software are close behind. than 400 art galleries, The number of companies 150 theatres, three opera in this sector grew 16 per houses and 170 museums. cent from 2000 to 2005 . Cinemas: 289 . The Media: media Berlinale, Berlin’s company Axel Springer has international film festival, is a major operation here, and rising to Venice and Cannes the national tabloid, Bild , levels of recognition and moved its headquarters from celebrity count. Hamburg to Berlin in March Creative industries: film this year – a seismic shift in and TV make up the majority the media landscape. of the work force in the Funding: Berlin receives creative sector, with 35,997 35 per cent of the federal employed. Publishing and government’s € 1.1 bn literature and games and culture budget. 01

02 issue 15 — 091 reporT Previous page Culture city: Berlin 01 Tanja Mühlhans, of the Berlin Ministry for Economics, Technology and Women’s Issues 02 Café Luzie on Oranienstrasse in Kreuzberg

This spread 01 Gallerists at the Jablonka Gallery 02 Christian Boros at his gallery in a former Nazi bunker 03 Jörg Koch and Sandra von Mayer- Myrtenhain, the publishers of fashion magazine ‘032c’ 04 The Haus der Kulturen der Welt

by harnessing the same sort of inspiration behind Tony Blair’s short-lived Cool Bri - tannia, and pushing its creative industries. In the detritus of a once-thriving textile and manufacturing industry it has recog - nised a luxury largely unavailable in other European capitals: space. “There are buildings a few blocks away from here, right on the Spree River, that are completely empty,” says actor Clemens Schick, who first moved to Berlin in 1993 and still has a flat in the city’s punk and Turkish neighbourhood, 01 02 03 Kreuzberg. “That’s what makes Berlin different. The potential is still there.” All that potential has fed a titanic wave of hype. The travel sections of the world’s newspapers are regularly filled with Berlin love letters. Armadas of creatives from Brooklyn, east London or Madrid, in black jeans and keffiyeh Preface The most anticipated event of Berlin’s hub has emerged that MoNoCLe feels just scarves, have migrated here for the city’s Berlin’s unemployment recent gallery weekend was the soft might be unparalleled in Europe. cheap studio space and round-the-clock rate is dismal and its once- launch of one of ’s best private Visitors to the recent gallery week - nightlife. New York’s Goff & Rosenthal thriving industry is defunct. But the abandoned collections of contemporary art. Clutches end, when out-of-town curators and col - gallery, Mumbai’s Bodhi gallery, and warehouses and power of invited guests – some hollow-eyed lectors perused the offerings of Berlin’s London’s Haunch of Venison have all stations now provide a from the excesses of the Saturday night burgeoning art scene, were able to see opened up spaces in the capital. home for galleries and before – slowly walked past pieces by work in over 400 galleries and 170 muse - studios that are leading Olafur Eliasson and Sarah Lucas, col - ums. More than 150 theatres, three major The German music industry, beginning the European avant-garde. Monocle salutes the winner lected over the past two decades by opera houses, and a world-class philhar - with Universal Music and MtV , began a of our culture capital award Christian Boros, an advertising executive monic orchestra await visitors at night, migration here from Hamburg and and wonders how many of from the west German city ofWuppertal. not to mention scores of nightclubs se - Munich in the past few years. Pity Ham - the city’s hungry, energetic But perhaps more impressive than creted away in abandoned power burg’s mayor, who in a recent interview creatives will ever get fed. the 500 pieces of art was the location – a stations, breweries and gDr- era pre- expressed the wish that people would writers former Nazi bunker cleverly transformed fabricated office buildings. consider his city as “exciting, magnetic Andreas Tzortzis from a five-storey concrete behemoth Berlin’s institutions reflect the legacy and interesting” as the German capital. into a maze of light, airy rooms and bal - of its cultural heritage – from the august “No one in the media business who photographer Jörg Koopmann conies. “It’s a sculpture,” says Christian neo-classicism of the 19th-century needs visibility can afford not to be in Braun, a visiting Munich architect. “The Staatsoper Unter den Linden and its Berlin,” says Jörg Koch, the lanky, effu - idea is absolutely wonderful.” It is also tribute to Prussia’s pomp, to the 1960s- sive publisher of the postmodern art and not possible anywhere else. era Hans Scharoun-designed Berlin Phil - fashion magazine 032c . The publication, Berlin may lack major industries harmonic building and the expressionist which Koch runs with his wife Sandra and boasts an unemployment rate of 16.5 Schaubühne theatre, where West Berlin von Mayer-Myrtenhain, recently opened per cent – higher than the Dominican Re - expanded its acclaimed music and the - its first office and “museum store” near public – and the schizophrenia of its di - atrical reputation thanks to millions in a new, central townhouse development vided existence may continue to burden government subsidies. designed for an increasingly upmarket its search for a place among the world’s In the past decade, the city has made Berlin resident, within sight of the capitals, but in that vacuum, a cultural up for the dearth of blue-chip companies Foreign Ministry. Follow the river Spree 04 092 — issue 15 issue 15 — 093 01 southeast from the government quarter, past Rem Koolhaas’s sleek Dutch Em - bassy, and you reach a growing cluster of music labels, publishers and multimedia gaming companies opening in former shipping warehouses and industrial buildings lining the banks. 02 03 01 Alte Schönhauser Strasse in Mitte 02 Actor Clemens Schick Here, in Kreuzberg,Turkish mingles with 03 Hans Scharoun’s Berlin German, and, increasingly, American Philharmonic building English. Older Turkish immigrants pull 04 Nicole Srock-Stanley, managing grocery carts past young graphic design - director of architects dan pearlman ers on their way to the cafés, MacBooks 05 At the Karneval der Kulturen in Kreuzberg and packets of cigarettes in hand. Along Köpenicker Strasse, the Acting up in every other city in Germany. So it since the fall of theWall. Berlin’s one con - conduit from Mitte to the new emerging makes sense to have one here.” sistency is its refusal to conform to the enclave of Schlesisches Tor, Konrad von Though no one would A bit further down the Spree, past expectations of others. Löhneysen in 2000 opened up the Berlin mistake Berlin Mitte in the the Munich insurer Allianz’s Berlin out - Indeed, the rise of Berlin’s creative offshoot of the Ministry of Sound record early 1990s for Silver Lake, post and near the lush expanse of Trep - class has happened, as Koch points out, Clemens Schick’s CV had label in a turn-of-the century industrial a decidedly Hollywood tower Park, are the loft offices of event “without any sort of government struc - building. “If we were doing something start. A fellow actor and brand architects, dan pearlman.The ture or economic pressure”. And therein new, it needed to be in Berlin,” says von hooked up the then-waiter company’s four founders picked Berlin lies one of the biggest challenges for the Löhneysen, who still has the slim frame of at Cantamaggio, a over Hamburg eight years ago because it city government: how to find an unob - a veteran clubber and smoker, but whose favourite of the Berlin seemed to have more “oomph”, as part - trusive way to steer the growth of Berlin’s theatre crowd, with hair has faded with age. “It was clear that auditions, launching his ner Nicole Srock-Stanley puts it. Its list €18.6bn creative industry so that some - more was going to happen here.” career. In the 15 years of clients includes Munich’s BMw and thing comes out of the hype. Jobs, for The transformation is illustrated by since, Schick, pictured Escada, Leverkusen’s Bayer, as well as example, and revenue. the view out of Löhneysen’s light-filled above, has worked in Hanover Zoo. “If you’re based here, you Among the grey legions of Berlin’s office, across the river and beyond the theatre companies in need to travel a lot,” she says. bureaucrats, Tanja Mühlhans stands out. Vienna, Berlin, Zürich and longest stretch of the Berlin Wall still Hanover, but keeps a flat But, she adds, “We’ve always done The attractive 39-year-old has lobbied for standing. An abandoned railway station, in Berlin. “I wouldn’t be well. There’s an advantage because Berlin’s creative talent since 2001. She’s once the home of one of Berlin’s premier able to do the same in clients love to come to Berlin. And if hosted round-tables between aspiring gay clubs, was razed two years ago to Munich,” he says. The you’re from Berlin, you automatically fashion labels and Germany’s notoriously city’s reputation as theatre make room for the o2 World arena, built get a little creative bonus.” risk-averse bank creditors and worked on capital of the German- 04 by the US media magnate Philip An - speaking world will also Never mind that Srock-Stanley and building networks and websites aimed at schutz. “The Police toured Germany last continue to be a magnet her partners waited a lot longer than helping creative companies grow. year and played in Hamburg, Düsseldorf for Schick. “You can planned for their success. Never mind This year, Berlin’s economics senator and Munich,” says Löhneysen, smoking produce theatre here that the plan for o2 World has been Harald Wolf initiated a €30m fund that doesn’t need to be a Gauloise red and looking out at the commercially viable,” around longer than it has taken to build that will provide financial aid to success - royal blue façade of the new hockey and he says. “So you can it. Never mind that Berlin’s “potential” ful creative firms – from film companies concert hall. “You have an arena like that really go for quality.” has been bandied about in conversations to multimedia and software designers. 05 094 — issue 15 issue 15 — 095 reporT Culture city: Berlin

Summer selection Bauhaus Museum: Berlin’s most comprehensive and Berlin arts and culture site beautiful collection of blacklodges.com picks this Bauhaus materials in a summer’s must-sees. beautiful Gropius building. Klingelhöferstrasse 14 Gute Aussichten: An 10785, (Tiergarten) exhibition featuring young photographers, all carrying Alec Soth: the torch for modern Minnesota: Presented by German photography. the International Forum for Niederkirchnerstrasse 7, Visual Dialogues, Soth’s D-10963, until 14 July work comprises starkly contrasting photographs Hiroshi Sugimoto of the international fashion Retrospective: The world – ranging from Karl 04 most comprehensive Lagerfeld on the catwalk retrospective of his in the Grand Palais of Paris fascinating oeuvre ever to Sonia Rykiel, the grande presented in a German- dame of French fashion, in speaking country. expensive furs. Neue Nationalgalerie, C/O Berlin, Oranienburger 4 July to 5 October Strasse 10117, until 13 July

01 02 applied for patent protection, and several 01 Peter Eisenman’s are being turned into bona fide business Holocaust Memorial ideas. Among them, Israeli student Nora 02 Hackescher market Lerner’s “Music Drop”, a small silicon in Mitte earpiece that can store data equal to one 03 Noa, an Israeli student at Berlin’s Universität song that can be played just once. Com - der Künste in panies are lining up to turn her Music “We see growth potential in creative in - Stella McCartney, among others. “But it Charlottenburg Drop into a merchandising instrument. dustries and that we can create a frame - never stops here. We survive because 70 04 Interior of the Akademie Fellow students Hanna Wiesner and work; but we can’t find a solution for per cent of our projects are abroad.” der Künste in Mitte Magdalena Kohler have taken their proj - 05 Barbecue in the everyone,” she says. “And because of our Tiergarten ect, creating unique textiles by generating dwindling resources, we have to focus on A few feet away, past the erratic dancing 06 Clubbers at Scala on patterns from their customer’s voice fre - the companies with growth potential.” of pop journalists and artists on the small Friedrichstrasse, Mitte quencies, and started a fashion label.The This pick-and-choose approach is dancefloor, Jablonka huddles with the 05 two have already begun polishing the both revealing of the limits of a bankrupt Munich media manager Christiane zu concept in their spacious, low-rent flats. city – debt still hovers at €60bn – and Salm – who also showed her collection in “We plan to start a collective,” says Berlin’s recognition that it should devote Berlin. Jablonka is similarly wary about Wiesner, 27. “And that’s typical Berlin. resources to one of the few industries that art market success in Berlin. Araki’s You can start something and only worry might have a future here. And while she photos, produced for Jablonka’s gallery, about paying the next month’s rent.” mediates and encourages the creatives, have been selling “so-so”. Art produced Their energy is as encouraging as it is and prods and goads the bureaucrats, in Berlin by names such as Thomas naive. But it would be foolish to dismiss Mühlhans can only hope the city’s suc - Demand and Eliasson, on the other hand, the potential. After all, if a Nazi bunker cess stories have patience. has appeared in shows at MoMa andTate can be converted into a showcase for At the after-party for a Nobuyoshi and sold all over the world. contemporary art, who’s to say sweaters Araki opening at the gallery belonging to “This city,” he says, “is to the art and scarves personalised with new tech - Köln dealer Rafael Jablonka, Chris market what China is to the world econ - nology can’t become a viable business Schönefeld mused on business in Berlin omy. But who’s buying in Berlin?” idea?Wiesner and Kohler have time – as, – and the possibility of moving away to Yet the energy of Berlin’s multitudes it seems, does the city they call home. Paris and London. “The production sur - of creative talents continues unabated. A “There’s something bubbling here vives only on the fruits that fall off the recent eU -funded project, Design Reac - now, and it’s all going to explode,” says side of the delivery truck as it makes its tor, paired students at the city’s top arts Lerner. “I’m sure Berlin is going to way through this city,” says Schönefeld, school, the Universität der Künste, with change in 10 years and I want to be there whose photo production agency Made in local craftsmen and hi-tech companies. when it does. And I want to be here now, Germany organises shoots for Dior and Of all the resulting products, six have before it does.” — 03 06 096 — issue 15 issue 15 — 097