I stumbled across this book shop in Berlin and it's a corker. It's mainly good for art, design and architecture books but also has some fiction and non fiction too.
I managed to get an old Arkitip which was pretty nice. Very few shops stock it, so I was quite impressed.
PROqm is situated in the heart of Mitte so it's super easy to get to, which is also a bonus. Recommended shopping.
I've been wanting to go to this gallery in Berlin for ages so I was pretty happy when I finally managed it recently.
Bongout is about the best lo-fi left field art gallery I've ever seen. If you're into that scene you really can't do any better.
I had missed a Seripop show by about a month which was sad but they still had all the work and I was happily able to buy a ridiculously cheap print. The show that was on (pictured below) was by Parisian collective Frédéric Magazine.
This gallery has all the best artists from the lo fi scene, some great T shirts, incredible screen-printed books and an arsenal of prints almost unrivaled. You can tell I liked it right!
You can find it (easily) at Torstraße 110.
I nearly forgot about this little gem I picked up from the East German Toy Museum. This is such an amazing idea. A jigsaw of a naked girl that explodes out of the container! Wow, I mean seriously, how do you come up with an idea like that?
Check the film:
The jigsaw is without doubt the worst quality jigsaw I have ever seen, some of the edges of the pieces have frayed, none of the bits fit together and it was way hard to actually make. It was fun seeing it explode though. It’s going in the bin because I have two more in a drawer.
It’s bit of push to call this packed to the rafters shop a museum, but the place is so charming it doesn’t really matter. This is the East German Toy Museum (in Berlin) and it’s quite a site to behold. If there is any wall space, floor space or even ceiling space you can bet it’s covered by something. The toy-obsessed owner of the shop obviously loves toys more than most might think possible.
When you go through the back of the shop to get to the museum section. Philipp (below), the curator of this toy carnage explains which stuff is for sale and which stuff is for show. The items are mostly from the DDR era and are beautiful – hand painted wooden and plastic toys, bizarre exploding jigsaw puzzles, paper models and games.
The pictures show pretty effectively what the place is like.
The ever enthusiastic Philipp comes round from time to time to show you things you’ve missed and demonstrate how some of the toys work. He clearly loves this stuff and you might suspect that he plays with everything after closing time.
These puppets were pretty special.
There were quite a lot of instructional toys to help kids understand elements of grown up life like this nice collection of scales.
Philipp explained to us that he had scratched the ceiling quite badly when installing a Christmas tree one time. Did he try and cover it up? Re-plaster? Nope – he turned it into a feature. The little guy on the ceiling is a skier and the marks are naturally his ski tracks.
Nudism was tolerated in Germany in many areas but in 1956 it was outlawed in East Germany. This doesn’t entirely explain why in the DDR Museum they have a large model of a beach covered with little naked people. I’ve read that nudism was popular in the DDR but it can’t have been that popular as it would surely have got people locked up. But hey, it’s really sweet little model so I took some pictures. If anyone does know why it’s in there I’d quite like to know. Everything I found out I’ve already written.
I mentioned Marxists teachings in a previous DDR Museum post. It seems as a young German in East Germany you were ‘ever so slightly’ pushed into joining the FDJ to learn about Marxism and Leninism. Ironically FDJ stood for ‘Free German Youth’. The FDJ have a sweet logo but the text is kinda scary. Check it out.
In the DDR museum there were lots of great packaging examples from the 60s and 70s to make any designer’s eyes water. Here are some of my favourites:
The DDR packaging is really quite special; in fact a lot of the DDR styling is very considered and pleasing to the eye. If you liked these, I highly recommend you get the Taschen book on DDR design. It’s got some more great stuff in it.
This DDR (GDR) museum in Berlin has what you might expect – the history of the DDR and all the crazy things that went on there like Nudism and Marxist teachings! More on this later.
The museum is laid out really nicely and had lots of really intriguing displays.
There are lots of little cupboards to open that play music and show you films.
How good is this display! A wooden cow, then a cacophony of information hidden within its bowels! Talk about user interaction. More DDR museum posts coming soon.
If you go to Berlin I recommend you go up the Fernsehturm tower, which is a very large television mast thing. There are killer views at the top of this 368m monster from a rotating viewing platform or a restaurant if you have money to burn. It’s the third tallest structure in Europe!
The DDR (GDR) built it in the 1960s as a symbol of the DDR administration and to demonstrate how great they were. It looks nuts - straight out of a Gerry Anderson TV show.
All the interiors are very 1960s and the lift holds about 6 people. The poor dude that operates the lift has to sit in it all day while it goes between two stops and travels the 360 odd meters over 40 seconds. The worst job in Germany? His ears must be popping 60 times an hour. That must suck.
Obligatory art shot.
Photo by Miles Donovan.
Lord only knows what this is, I like it though. I saw it on a wall in Berlin. It’s pretty hard to read and it’s in German so I’m stumped.
Because East Germany used to be kinda strict, they didn’t allow stuff from the western world coming in so much. This included music, so in 1947 German actor and singer Ernst Busch got permission from the Soviet Military Administration (in Germany) to start a record label to release the music for the people of East Germany and so AMIGA was born.
Over the years AMIGA released over 30,000 titles. Pressing up versions of what came out in the western world. I couldn’t go to East Berlin and not buy one. Luckily they are still kicking around a lot of second hand record shops and aren't too expensive. I picked up this Champion Jack Dupree album with a pretty terrible sleeve but I guess it balances out with the great music and of course the history.
Another nice eatery in east Berlin. There was a really nice lazy feel about the place, and of course the food was great. I had a vegetable soup with pesto. Another recommendation but don’t drink the red beer!
They also had some little jars of edible goods for sale as well.
German food doesn’t have the best reputation in the world but I gotta say the grub in the Gugelhof was right on par. I had Wild Boar with spinach and pasta and it was gooood. If you’re in east Berlin I recommend checking it out. I like their logo too:
This is a crazy good bit of guerrilla PR for a clothes shop. It’s for a shop in Mitte in Berlin called Flip Flop. I saw this just wedged into a pipe on the street. Nice.
I saw these lovely bags in a design shop in Berlin. Thought I’d share.
ACADEMIC (ish)
