Bierpinsel tower or Turmrestaurant Steglitz

  On a long ride through the south of Berlin I discovered this landmark tower on Schloßstraße. Situated above the palace ubahn station, it has the location and the iconic shape that stands out and yet its been empty since 2006. With a look this futuristic it looks like the surrounding building are only just now beginning to catch up with its distinct style.
  It seems it was developed as a restaurant back in the mid 70's called Turmrestaurant Steglitz, but for various reasons went bankrupt. It has since had many different businesses at the location including bars and cafe's. Its an impressive structure for sure. Its possible it was intended to be another icon for the former West Berlin state and to showcase architectural abilities of the west.

  Not only is it on the main street but its also on a large cross street. The building is integrated into the elevated highway and has a central elevator to access this and an adjoining elevated parking area.

The entrance to the elevator from the ubahn exit.

  The current graffiti edifice was created in 2010 by a number of artists for a street art exhibition in and around the tower. There's a bit more info here

  Apparently needed structural repairs forced its closure and are the reason no one wants to reopen it. Too bad as I'd like to see inside.

  Until next time,
Andy

The devils in the details

A group of friends and I went for a tour to the old US listening station at Teufelsberg a few weeks ago. I've been out there before but now its being run by a collective of creative types with tours happening on a regular basis. More here. I was curious to see what has changed. The place has been cleaned up a lot and looks far less like a refugee camp.

   The name Teufelsberg means devils mountain in German and its actually a really nice area of Berlin. Its a large collection of rolling hills covered in forest, a few small lakes and lots of trails to bike or walk through, great in summer. Its when walking that you get a idea of how appropriate the name of this forest and "mountain" is. Even with a casual glance either side of the trail, you spot bricks, bits of metal, glass and other construction debris. This was the dumping place after the war for all the bomb damaged houses of Berlin. A mountain of dirt, debris and sad memories is birthing a forest of renewal.

  So for our tour of the listening station, we all biked out there and climbed the hill to the front gate. Despite it still being early March it was great weather for the trip. Its getting quite popular and a large crowd had developed by the time we set off.

  The first stop inside the perimeter fence was a large building that once housed the mess hall of the site. I didn't catch much of the guides comments as she didn't seem all that enthused about the place or was just tired that day, rather disappointing for a guide. Unfortunately we didn't go inside.

  Next up was the main tower complex with the large radar domes. The first two floors are now impromptu graffiti art galleries.

To the left is one of the piles of debris, now covered in people flying kites, model airplanes or hang gliding.

 In the shot above is a view over the much larger building, never made it very far inside that one, most curious though. On the roof there is now a large painting of a triangular cat/dog creature. Sadly this is not an improvement in my opinion as there used to be a great drawing of a cosmonaut monkey in that same spot, see below.

Inside the highest dome. It feels much more like a gallery now rather than a abandoned facility as it did before, see below.

The veils of secrecy removed.

The stamp of gentrification

 A few shots from years past,

  So, for the time being, that is my last visit to the Teufelsberg station. And yes we forgot to get the group shot for the end, next time:)

Andy