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Ruins and Resistance: Life Inside Berlin’s Past
Along a Berlin street called Linden Strasse I observed the shrapnel and bullet pock marks in the walls. Still present after all these years.
A city is nothing without its people. Yet a city is also a silent witness to the past. Walk any berlin street, day or night, and you feel the past. If you can see marks of the past in the cobblestones, then you can surely feel it in your bones.
I look for clues of the past in Berlin’s architecture. I’m always walking, looking upwards, often too much; Car horns warn me to watch where I walk.
Architecture shows us the present and the past. Tall columns that reach up high enough to make your neck ache. Designs that mix up a little of the Romans with the Greeks, Doric, ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan and Composite.
Northern European architecture favours smallness. Not tall columns reaching towards the heavens, but squat doorways, tiny windows that protect dwellers from winter weather. Country homes that are functional, workshops only big enough to roll a wooden cart into then load up with goods. That’s my imagination. Walking on Berlin cobblestones fires up the heart.
