In January I wrote an article about Weissensee which was
published, in a heavily edited form, on the Slow Travel Berlin website. Last year I spent quite a bit of time in this
part of the city for one reason or another – my two-month stint working in a
call centre on Berliner Allee, the week of cat and flat-sitting in
Langhansstrasse and the summer afternoons when we cycled to the lake armed with
books, blankets and beer. It’s a
fascinating place for a ramble and it’s only a ten-minute walk from our flat to
the beginning of the district at Prenzlauer Promenade (which is nowhere near as
grand as it sounds).
Here is my article, in
its original form:
Factories, Friedhöfe and Films: Exploring Berlin’s ‘White
Lake’ Neighbourhood
It’s a hot, languid Friday afternoon in July. I’m sitting on a blanket on a patch of
scraggy grass that slopes down to the Weisser See, the compact but charming lake
from which the neighbourhood to the north east of Prenzlauer Berg takes its
name. Sun worshippers, families with beach
balls and dinghies, and a nude bather or two have turned out for some early
weekend recreation. Energetic swimmers
make for the lake’s frolicsome fountain while ducks and swans glide by, indifferent
to the antics of their human companions.
As we’re only a few yards away from the ‘Milchhäuschen’ my partner and I
are contemplating taking a stroll over for a beer on its lakeside terrace.
The first time we’d visited the lake, one drizzling February
afternoon, the prospect had been rather forlorn; the Milchhäuschen’s terrace had
been deserted, its tables and chairs in winter storage, and the only people about
had been joggers and dog walkers. At the
time we lived opposite the tram stop for Prenzlauer Allee S-Bahn station and for
some reason, we’d never explored this end of the city much beyond that
point until that day in February when we decided to set
off on foot for Prenzlauer Berg’s northern reaches. A ten-minute walk past a few supermarkets and
housing blocks brought us to Caligariplatz, a miniscule square sharpened to a
point at the junction of Prenzlauer Promenade, Gustav Adolf Strasse and Heinersdorferstrasse.
Caligariplatz
marks the south-westerly tip of Weissensee (established as the village of ‘Wittense’
in the Thirteenth Century and greatly developed and expanded in the late 1800s),
at times attractive and well-heeled, at others a faded backwater, it often has
the feel of a separate town rather than a suburb of the Hauptstadt. There are
no hipster hangouts here, no paleo restaurants or third wave coffee shops. And whilst a kilometre or so away in
Prenzlauer Berg, olive oil boutiques and artisan pasta shops persuade locals to
part with their cash, retail outlets in this part of the city are of a far more
prosaic nature. There are exceptions, such
as the record shop on Gustav Adolf Strasse whose windows full of Duran Duran
and Depeche Mode albums suggest an early 80s fetish, or the little shop in
Langhansstrasse which sells only preserves, but they are relatively few in
number.
Brotfabrik, Caligariplatz
After that first foray, which took us on a meandering walk
up to the lake and back, Weissensee became a favourite destination for our
urban rambles. Our acquaintance with the
district deepened when we worked for a time at a call centre on Berliner Allee
and contrived to walk home via a different combination of back streets every
night. We also spent a week cat-sitting
for friends in their lovely Weissensee flat at the end of November. For the reasons I’ve already mentioned, it’s
not the number one destination on most visitor’s lists but a day spent
exploring is worth consideration, not least because of the many surprises it
has up its sleeve. The first, if
approaching via Prenzlauer Allee, can be found at Caligariplatz where an
information panel details the area’s erstwhile importance as the ‘Hollywood’ of
Europe. In the early years of the
Twentieth Century, the major German film studios were located in the
neighbourhood, their most famous product being the silent horror classic ‘Das Cabinet
des Dr. Caligari’. Screen legend Marlene
Dietrich debuted here in the 1923 melodrama ‘Tragödie der Liebe’.
Nowadays, almost nothing persists of this legacy; the
studios have long since disappeared from the landscape and of the many cinemas
the area once boasted, only the Kino Toni on Antonplatz has survived.
Back on Caligariplatz, the dominant structure is the yellow-painted
‘Brotfabrik’. A former bread factory as
its name indicates, Brotfabrik is now a cultural centre housing a cinema, theatre,
gallery and bar. Across the road is the
Delphi, a delightfully atmospheric but sadly dilapidated one-time silent movie
theatre. Funds are currently being
sought for a redevelopment project aimed at transforming the Delphi into a
multi-arts space.
A wander around the streets to the east of Caligariplatz –
an area of car workshops, ‘Friedhöfe’ and former factories – yields more
unexpected finds, such as the Kunsthalle on Hamburger Platz. Run by a prestigious art college, the
Kunsthalle, with the outward appearance of a community centre on a council
estate, hosts cultural events of all kinds, from exhibitions to film
screenings.
Car workshop, Heinersdorfer Strasse
The large, leafy Georgen-Parochial-Friedhof III, across from
the Kunsthalle, includes former Weissensee worthies and victims of World War II
among those laid to rest within its walls.
Behind it are allotments and a community garden. A little further along, on Gustav-Adolf
Strasse, is a striking complex of five apartment houses grouped around
sculpture-filled gardens. The project of
sculptor Sergej Dott, each brightly-coloured house is decorated according to a
particular theme, for example, fish, rabbits, birds and butterflies.
East of the cemetery, on Pistoriusstrasse, is the Shri Wadim
Shakti Tempel which contains an art gallery and a garden full of nude statues.
Pistoriusstrasse is one of half a dozen streets which converge
on Mirbachplatz, a small square, one side of which is taken up with the Café
Mirbach. In summer the café’s terrace is
a hive of activity as locals gather for a beer, Kaffee und Kuchen or more
substantial German fare in the shadow of the Bethanienturm, the church tower on
the square’s central island. The church
was built at the turn of the Twentieth Century to accommodate the area’s
growing population and suffered severe damage during World War II with only the
tower escaping.
Further east is Berliner Allee, the area’s main artery and
the heart of the original village. The
section between Antonplatz and the Albertinenstrasse tram stop is the main
shopping hub being lined with Euro shops and bakeries. Locals can be found tucking into hearty
platefuls of eisbein with red cabbage and mashed potato at Fleischereien which
double up as lunch spots and on Tuesdays and Fridays Antonplatz hosts a food
market.
Eastwards of Antonplatz, accessed via Herbert Baum Strasse,
is the Jüdischer Friedhof, the largest of its kind in Europe, with some 115,000
graves over a 40-acre site. Notable
tombs include those of painter Lesser Ury and murdered resistance fighter
Herbert Baum. Although the cemetery
sustained some war damage, miraculously it was left largely untouched by the
Nazis and occasional services were carried out right up until 1944. Today, memorials commemorate victims of both
World War I and the Holocaust.
Jewish Cemetery
Following Berliner Allee in the direction of the lake,
Buschallee is notable for its Bruno Taut houses and across the road, at number
185, is the lakeside house in which dramatist Bertolt Brecht and his wife
Helene Weigel lived between 1949 and 1953.
The house, like the row of abandoned shops alongside it, is rather run
down; only the inscription ‘Brecht Haus Weissensee’ above the entrance gives
any indication as to its illustrious one-time occupants.
Brecht Haus, Berliner Allee
At the junction with Liebermannstrasse, a modest plaque
marks the location of the ‘Filmstadt Weissensee’ and round the corner is the
pocket-sized Joe May Platz, named after the director and film pioneer whose
studios stood here.
Although nothing is produced in Weissensee any more, industrial
architecture abounds. Brick-built, with
soaring chimneys and sometimes tiled à la the Hackesche Höfe, many former
factory complexes have been repurposed as residential premises while others stand
empty, waiting perhaps for developers to give them a new lease of life. Domestic architecture in this part of the
city covers a diverse spectrum: the factory conversions sit side-by-side with
DDR-era apartment blocks, Altbau tenements and individual villas. Rents are lower than in the ‘trendier’
neighbourhoods but many buildings, both residential and commercial, whose ‘potential’
might be exploited elsewhere in the city remain derelict.
Abandoned factory
Weissensee is hardly a secret – it’s the eponymous location
for a major German TV series for a start.
Nor is it off the beaten track, being served by a number of bus and tram
routes. It is however, rewarding
territory for urban explorers with something of interest to be found in
practically every street.
The lake at dawn
