Light and shadows in the museum, Berlin
Sunlight reflecting off the marble floor of the Neue Nationalgalerie in the Kulturforum, Berlin. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
Although this glass walled atrium is ‘only’ the lobby of Berlin’s gallery of modern art it’s easily the most impressive space in the complex, if not in the whole of the Kulturforum, cultural epicentre of Germany’s renewed capital city. Mies van der Rohe created a dramatic yet simple layer that’s full of still light perfectly setting the scene for the world class collection underneath. They keep the glass nice and clean too – the window cleaners do a typically German high quality job.
I really like Berlin, but it took me a couple of days to realise what it was that made it feel a bit different from other European capitals. There’s just not that many people around. Without exception, Euro capitals are bustling, noisy, crowded places; try taking more that three steps in a straight line down Oxford Street or the Avenue des Champs-Élysées without getting bumped into. Sure, you see crowds occasionally, it’s not a ghost town. I was there during the European Cup and it was decidedly punchy on the U-Bahn and riotously exuberant around Zoo Station after Germany beat Turkey in the semi-finals. But there’s a strange tranquility to this city when you’re used to bumper to bumper traffic and teeming masses of humanity. Take this image, looking over the Sony Centre in Potsdamer Platz, the modern business district beside the Tiergarten:
This aerial panorama was shot at 2 o’clock in the afternoon (not the ideal time for a great shot, I’ll admit, but if I’m working, I’m working, if you know what I mean). That’s a three lane highway right in the centre of a capital city – with no cars on it! Where is everybody? Gives you a good idea of the scale of the leafy oasis that is the Tiergarten too, the peaceful green lungs of the city.
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Top image: 1/125, f5, ISO200 20mm 6658 × 3000 pixels.
Bottom image: 1/125, f16, ISO200 50mm 9999 x 4206 pixels.
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Weltzeituhr, tram and Fernsehtum, Berlin
The soaring spire of Fernesehturm overlooking a characteristic yellow tram and the modernist atomic sculpture of the Weltzeituhr in Alexanderplatz. Image © fotoVoyager 2008.
Three iconic symbols of eastern Berlin in one compact image – how’s that for value for money?
Any European misguidedly feeling any pangs of ostalgie will certainly get their retro-modernist longings catered for in Alexanderplatz. The huge square in the heart of old East Berlin has some terrific concrete brutalist architecture as well as the iconic World Time Clock constructed by Eric John in 1969 that shows the time in cities around the world (as the name suggests, natch) with a distinctly communist bias. The landmark is now a popular meeting place for locals and indeed I did have to wait 20 minutes for a bunch of Berliners to bugger off before I could take this picture.
Towering above the square and the curved roof of the eponymous railway station is the monumental Fernesehturm (television tower) space needle with its spherical observation deck. You get a terrific view over the whole of Berlin and the surrounding countryside from the top, though the glass has a polarising tint that ruins photos through it – you have been warned! The entrance is on the northern side, not through the TV studio that overlooks the fountains below it, as I discovered with my inimitable German as they pushed me back out the door…
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1/125 second, f14, ISO200 20mm
2848 x 4288 pixels. Please don’t steal this image, it’s how I make my living.