This is one of my favourite places in Berlin, translated literally it means “The Animal Garden”, but it’s one of those confusing compound German words that actually just means “Zoo”, although this “Tiergarten” actually refers to the massive public park in zentral Berlin.
Berlin is located on the European plain, and over one third of the city comprises of forests, parks, gardens, rivers and lakes, much of which is the result of the last ice age, sheets of ice grinding the area flat, the subsequent thaw leaving bare a very sandy soil and thousands of lakes, around which forests have grown..
And all this can be observed in microcosm in the Tiergarten.
This is a series of winter images, mostly capturing the reflections of these trees in the surface lake water.
The abandoned Teufelsberg complex as seen from an alternative rear pathway to the site
The name itself conjures up visions of otherworldly experiences, of a resident evil eliminating the joy of existence, and the site’s generally poor condition only reinforces this impression.
A victim of the Cold War, this former US listening post gradually succumbs to the forces of nature
Abandoned, and now graffitied, the walls are full of nuggets of urban wisdom, much of it seemingly in code:
…the list eventually peters out, but not because the author ran out of things to hate, but because the wall was smaller than his creative vision, and also because his can of spray paint eventually just spluttered to a halt.
The interior is now a vast urban art gallery
Any of history’s great masters would have immediately hot-footed it down to the medieval pigment store for an assortment of brightly coloured pebbles to grind into a fresh batch of egg tempura, but not these modern-day talents, they just leave their masterpieces unfinished, for society to admire, if and when it can.
Surely these very same walls offer a plausible explanation as to why pre-neolithic man sometimes decorated the walls of some far-flung and almost inaccessible cave system with drawings, odd symbols and handprints?
Edward Snowdon, ex-CIA employee and now alternative hero
It wasn’t part of a religious ceremony, or superstition even, it was just a gang of the local stone-age youth out exploring and graffitiing up the neighbourhood on the quiet.
A man-made hill
The Teufelsberg is a man-made hill on the outskirts of West Berlin comprising of the rubble and other debris resulting from the bombing of the city by the allied forces during WWII.
Inside what remains of one of the domes
Named after the nearby Teufelssee – Devil’s Lake – it rises approximately 80 meters above the surrounding Teltow plateau.
The hill was later used as the location for a US listening station, construction starting in 1963, but quickly abandoned at the end of the Cold-War, due to the collapse of the communist system and the reunification of Germany in 1990.
The watcher, chained and immortalised
The complex of abandoned buildings has since been bought and sold by various groups with plans of developing the area, as a hotel, or a university etc. but until now very little has been undertaken, except maybe that since local graffiti artists discovered the huge potential the expansive walls the concrete structures offer, the compound has become world-famous as an ever-evolving street art gallery and it’s become one of the area’s most notorious abandoned places, the urban photographer’s dream location, where nature’s gradual recapturing of its own can be observed in real-time.
View over the Grunewald forest, the city of Berlin in the distance
These images, taken almost 120 years apart,show not only the great changes this location has undergone, but also how the basic layout isstill very recognisable.
The image from c.1900 shows a still functioning rail-line from the Anhalter main rail station just south of Potsdamer Platz, crossing the Landwehr canal on an iron riveted bridge, which is itself crossed by an iron box-bridge serving the U1 and U3 metro lines.
The Anhalter main rail station was once one of Berlin’s most important and busiest rail links, but extensive bomb damage suffered during the Second World War reduced rail services to a minimum, which the subsequent division of Berlin only compounded, as the Station was situated in West-berlin, but served only stations in Soviet occupied East-Germany.
The station was eventually closed and demolished, only a fragment of the station now remaining as a memorial.
The image from 2019 shows how the basic layout still remains, although all traces of the original structures are long gone, a box-bridge still crosses the canal as part of the metro, but below there is now a pedestrian bridge, the area having since been transformed into one of Berlin’s most loved recreational areas.
c.1900 – Bridge over the Landwehr canal showing the line from the Anhalter main rail station
2019 – Bridge over the Landwehr canal showing where the line from the Anhalter main rail station used to run
Concrete is a remarkable building material, it’s ubiquitous use allows modern architects almost full rein over their creative visions, the gigantic proportions of the preferred geometric shapes and forms are no longer limited in scale by the antiquated use of the common brick, particularly when reinforced with steel.
The washing Maschine, reflected in the windows of the building opposite
It’s actually one of the oldest known building materials, dating back over 3000 years, but this chemical marvel also has a dark side, it’s use is responsible for maybe up to 8% of total global CO2 emissions.
Conversing on a concrete pedestrian bridge spanning the river Spree
Cement, one of concrete’s main ingredients, is produced by heating limestone in giant kilns, this process requires inordinate quantities of energy, usually in the form of fossil fuels, which is then only compounded by the fact that the heating process breaks limestone down Into its component parts: the desired lime and the unwanted carbon dioxide, which is then just pumped into the atmosphere.
Huge expanses of plain concrete make for very effect backgrounds
But modern life probably just wouldn’t be possible without it, it’s everywhere, solving just as many problems as it creates.
A modern city landscape of concrete and glass
And where else on planet Earth is so much of this versatile and yet climate-destroying material on public display than in environmentally friendly Germany, its very own new government quarter in central Berlin, hugging the banks of the river Spree.
Again this huge concrete pedestrian walkway, hanging from the sky
A mass of bold geometry, the use of basic forms vying with created spaces between, the architecture is visually quite stunning and deceptively simple, only modern construction techniques allow such grace.
Image Gallery
Walkway, but more often used as shelter by the homeless
House of the World’s Cultures
Part of the gigantic German Chancellery complex by the river Spree
U-Bahn Bundestag, an almost solid block of concrete
View of the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-House by the River Spree
The geometric forms have become a much loved backdrop for photographers
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