Sredzkistraße

berlin.unlike any other

As probably anyone who knows me can attest to, I’m something of a Berlin-fanatic. It’s most likely insufferable in real life, hearing someone go on and on about the virtues of this great city, but at least I can harp on about it here in little conversations with myself to my heart’s content, in the knowledge that it shall at worst cause nobody annoyance and at best perhaps prove useful to one or two of the internet’s many lost souls.

First up in what is likely to be a long string of love-letters to Germany’s capital city is a descovery I made the other day: the website berlin.unlike. With a tag-line stating its aim to be the “definitive city guide for the mobile generation” (whatever the fuck that means), it provides articles on all the usual stuff: where to eat, where to club and where to stay, but also some interesting guides on “wellness” and “thrills.”

What first brought me to the site was an article about Haus Biesenthal, a stunning manor-house on the outskirts of Berlin. Seemingly bought and renovated by a group of artists and architects, it is “supposed to be the center point of an ecological special zone”, the artists having preserved the facade of the house while completely revamping everything else:

Inside, there’s impressive minimalist architecture complemented with rather busy interior design: it seems the only decorations adorning the walls are the artists’ own works:

Incredible stuff. Apparently the house serves as a kind of art gallery, and the third exhibition, featuring the art of 20 different artists, will begin on the 5th July. My exams finish at the end of July – I find myself hoping the exhibition will go on for a few months…

Another feature of the website which I particularly liked were the guides to Berlin written by local celebrities such as Lars Eidinger and DJ Shir Khan, who list bars, restaurants and attractions of Berlin which are notable and which the average person may not know about. They also explain what they find special about these places in a paragraph or two (most interestingly in Eidinger’s guide, as a slightly unusual case in that he was born and grew up in Berlin).

This blog post is simply an unfairly shallow scratch at the surface of this wonderful website which demands far more than simply a cursory glance. Indeed, it turns out it’s more of a network than a single website: there are .unlike websites for Amsterdam, Barcelona, Copenhagen, London, Miami, Paris, Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Vienna.

Konrad Fischer Galerie