Germany Does Halloween

Harvest, Volksfestival, Beer Festival, Autumn and Halloween all seem to be rolled into one sensory season. Blumen /florists are filled with pumpkins and autumnal coloured bits and pieces.  Windows at street level both retail and domestic, pay particular attention to seasonal tableaus. I’m reminded of the Japanese “nature table”, that special nook where nature is brought into the home, usually ikebana. In most towns we have visited, with the exception of Berliners who couldn’t be fagged, the window sill provided a nature screen between the inside and outside worlds. 

Domestic windows are so carefully and aesthetically arranged often naff or cutesy but always with intimate detail and attention. It is a shame I can’t offer more shots but the camera does not deflect glass glare well.

This is Galleria, a major department store in Alexanderplatz, Berlin. They have gone all out not only the Halloween stock but on the displays. Change rooms also featured gender specific ghouls.

Wine from Italy

Flic Flac EXXtreme Circus

For our last evening in Berlin we took off to the opening night of Flic Flac, a German version of Circus Oz, or so we thought.

After a spritely walk though Berlin’s main rail yard, we finally found the huge yellow tents and the box office. In the space of 15 minutes of walking in and lining up when had scored two sets of free tickets. Turns out, that the the locals in the areas get sets of free tickets to assuage the noise levels they suffer each night during the season. To our great fortune and due to having two cute kids in tow, we saw a tremendous spectacle.

Show included the Globe of Speed, which was a metal latticed ball that, in its grand finale had nine motorcycles tearing around inside. Other risky street acts included rollerblading and BMX bikes doing nutty jumps on fifteen meter ramps. There was also the standard acrobatic  feats with a punk attitude and a fantastic trampoline performance based on a brothel!! A single clown interspersed the daredevil activities with great pathos and timing.

A brilliant night.

Ball of Speed-

Not sure what they called this one, but I was on the edge of my seat

Massive ramp jumps by rollerbladers, BMX & motorcross bikes

BERLIN Warning - indulgent architectural shots to follow

Fernseh Turm, Alexanderplatz

Victory Monument

View from the Victory Monument over Tiergarten

Hugo in front of one the Berlin Wall Memorial, Bernauerstrasse

Reichstag lintel from main entrance 

Reichstag as seen from the Spree River boat tour

Altegalerie, Berlin

Sack the creative director

The esteemed KPM Konigsliche Porzellan-Manufaktur, Berlin is celebrating 250 years of equisite porcelain products with a collectors item: the Friedrich the Great Potato

Apparently Friedrich is responsible not only for establishing a competitive porcelain factory to rival King August's Meissen business but he also introduced the potato to the Prussians. Fancy that!

And here it is: 95 euro for the naturalistisch and 115 euro mit Gold Staffage

At what point did the creative chain of communication break? This looks like a polished poo!

And on prominent display at the entry of KPM, Berlin; Friedrick with raining poo-like potatoes.

a Fragmentarium & the Neues Museum

The Neues Museum was heavily damaged during WW2 air raids and parts of it were completely destroyed. The ruin remained exposed to weathering until a provisional roof was constructed in 1986. Only with construction works in the early 1980s were mural paintings and decorative elements intentionally taken down in order to use them during reconstuction. Between 2000 & 2003 these objects were collected in a databased, identified and relocated. Pieces were then put back into their exact positions over four years.

Pieces on display in the Fragmentarium could not be relocated because the rooms to which they had originally belonged were completely destroyed.

I fancy that a corner or cabinet in each of our homes could be devoted to such a display. It would be filled with those bits and pieces, collected over the years that don't seem to belong anywhere. Those precious objects that travel with us yet they evade even in one's memory of why they were kept in the first place. 

The Neues Museum was built in 1843 and restoration was completed in 2009 and it is a magnificent museum with significant collections, thoughtful attention to the history of the building's interior architecture and splendid range of display methods. 

Probable strafing splay on the wall to the right of the fellas.

Daylight, spot light, some replica & some original columns, structural brick work left revealed.

The emotive basement or cellar space now used for Egyptian and Roman burial objects. 

A real treasure.