Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
he well-visited Jüdisches Museum (Jewish Museum) and the Berlinische Galerie are
just a couple of the many respectable museums in northwest Kreuzberg and near the
world's most famous Cold War border crossing, Checkpoint Charlie . Just south of
Kreuzberg, the adjacent districts of Tempelhof and Treptow are interesting for two
huge and impressive monuments to crumbled regimes: the Nazi Tempelhof Airport
and Soviet Memorial respectively.
ARRIVAL AND GETTING AROUND
Western Kreuzberg The main sights are all within
walking distance of the U6 U-Bahn line, which runs
south from Friedrichstrasse in Mitte. If you're feeling
energetic, you could easily walk between them all in a
day, in which case you might start by taking bus #248
from Alexanderplatz to the Jewish Museum and set off
from there.
Eastern Kreuzberg The U-Bahn stations Kottbusser Tor
or Schlesisches Tor are the best way in, after which it's
mostly a matter of walking around - though the Treptower
Park's Soviet Memorial is a bus ride from the latter station.
Friedrichshain A rapid U-Bahn line travels beneath Karl-
Marx-Allee from Alexanderplatz, from where the S-Bahn
also leaves for the Ostbahnhof and Warschauer Str.
7
Western Kreuzberg
When in the 1830s, Berlin's industries started recruiting peasants from the outlying
countryside to work in their factories and machine shops, it was to the small village of
Kreuzberg that many came. hey ended up living in low-rent buildings thrown up by
speculators, making Kreuzberg a solidly working-class area and, in time, a suburb of
Greater Berlin. Siemens, the electrical engineering giant, began life in a Kreuzberg
courtyard. In the 1930s local trade unionists and workers fought street battles with the
Nazis, and during the war it was one of the very few areas to avoid total destruction,
and among the quickest to revive in the 1950s.
he nondescript modern city blocks just south of Mitte are atypical, displaying
almost no evidence of Kreuzberg's countercultural roots or its preserved nineteenth-
century past. Nonetheless, this part of the district is worth investigating for its
museums and its most famous sight, Checkpoint Charlie .
Jüdisches Museum Berlin
Lindenstr. 9-14 • Mon 10am-10pm, Tues-Sun 10am-8pm • €5 • T 030 25 99 33 00, W jmberlin.de • U-Hallesches Tor or bus #248 from
Alexanderplatz
A phenomenal silver fortress in the midst of residential streets once levelled by wartime
bombing, the Jüdisches Museum Berlin (Jewish Museum Berlin) is one of Berlin's most
exciting pieces of architecture. Uncomfortable angles and severe lines create a disturbed
and uneasy space that mirrors the di cult story portrayed inside: that of the history
and culture of German Jewry.
he extraordinary building is by Daniel Libeskind. he ground plan is in the form
of a compressed lightning bolt (intended as a deconstructed Star of David), while
the structure itself is sheathed in polished metallic facing, with windows - or, rather,
thin angular slits - that trace geometric patterns on the exterior. here's no front door
and entry is through an underground tunnel connected to the Kollegienhaus - the
Baroque building next door that serves as an annexe to the museum and is used for
temporary exhibitions.
he interior is just as unusual, manifesting Libeskind's ideas about symbolic
architecture, while retaining a sculptural symmetry: a “void” - an empty and
inaccessible diagonal shaft - cuts through the structure, while three long
intersecting corridors, each representing an element of Jewish experience, divide the
space at basement level. At the foot of the basement stairs the “axis of exile” leads
outside to a garden of pillars; the “axis of the Holocaust” crosses it, connecting with
the Holocaust Tower, dimly lit and, again, completely empty; and the “axis of
continuity” follows, leading to a trudge up several flights of stairs to the permanent
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search