One of my favorite urban sketching subjects is the storefront elevation; drawing a storefront is a great way to represent the liveliness of an urban scene and its inhabitants while also capturing architectural style.
After a few months in Berlin, I've begun to get a sense of the distinctions of each of the city's neighborhoods. There are stereotypes associated with each neighborhood (like Schöneberg has a high population of queer people or Prenzlauer Berg is where all the families live), but the "character" of each area is more complex than can be simplified by stereotypes or demographics, because each neighborhood has developed a personality as a result of its role in the tumultuous and ruptured history of Berlin. These personalities are constantly changing and interacting with one another as the city grows and changes. I decided a perfect way to explore Berlin's neighborhoods further would be to draw a storefront from each (or most) of the neighborhoods.
I should note that I refer to "neighborhoods" rather than "districts" for this project, since the neighborhoods of Berlin are colloquially understood as entities with individual characters (Schöneberg, Prenzlauer Berg, Kreuzberg), rather than the official districts (Tempelhof-Schöneberg, Pankow, or Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg).
I reached out to my peers, who live scattered all across Berlin in various home-stays, and asked each of them what their favorite coffee shop is in their neighborhood of residence. Then I visited many of these coffee shops to buy a chai latte and people-watch for a while before sketching the storefront in my sketchbook.
Why coffee shops? I think that this kind of storefront is a fairly ubiquitous motif throughout any city landscape, especially in Berlin (which has a thriving coffee culture). Additionally, because they are such a standard element of any city street, coffee shops are a great way to compare the idiosyncrasies of local character.
For example, the first coffee shop I sketched was in Steglitz, a somewhat peripheral neighborhood in the southern part of Berlin. My friend Ruby lives in Steglitz, and she took me to a small Bücher-café. It was primarily a book shop with a small cafe where "they might remember to bring you your coffee," according to Ruby. Steglitz is largely a residential area, and as Ruby put it, "the only things that are here are here because people who live here use them." Compared to some of the other parts of Berlin which have been so appropriated by city marketing and inundated by international visitors, this gives Steglitz a quality of sincerity and charm that I thought was reflected well by this simple, nondescript Bücher-café façade.
There are plenty of Berlin neighborhoods which differ noticeably from the quiet residential Steglitz neighborhood. Berlin has long had a reputation as a hub of creativity and counterculture, and in the past 30 years it has been marketed as such. This draws in vibrancy, but it also changes the composition of the city's inhabitants, displaces certain populations, and alters the city's culture itself. Since the late 1980s, gentrification has proceeded in a spiral-like pattern from Kreuzberg to Mitte to Prenzlauer Berg to Friedrichshain, chasing the city's "creatives" as one subcultural space is appropriated by developers and they move on to the next neighborhood. Today, gentrification is returning in a more advanced stage to Kreuzberg and pushing its way into Neukölln as well.
I visited cafés that exemplify the advanced stages of gentrification in Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg. The processes of gentrification began in full force in Mitte (the neighborhood in the center of the city) around 1992 when investment into the city center became a political priority. By 2005, developers shifted from renovating existing properties to new construction, and much of Berlin's large-scale luxury development is now occurring there. Café 93 is located in a newer building on a quiet street near the bustling Hackescher Markt, a retail hub. With trendy plants in the windows and 6-euro smoothies, Café 93 is a great representation of the shifts that have occurred in Mitte since it was mainly inhabited by squatters and artists in the 1990s.
Interestingly, when you search for Café 93 on Google Maps, you will find the cafe listed, but it does not appear on google streetview. This is actually the case for many of the places I visited -- change occurs so rapidly in Berlin that Google Maps can't keep up. Where Café 93 is now, I saw only a blank and empty storefront, reminding me that the Berlin I am experiencing now is quite different than the one my dad experienced when he visited in the 90s, than the one my peers experienced where they were here just last semester, and than the one I might experience if I ever return. Berlin is a work in progress.
Many young professionals moved to Prenzlauer Berg in the late 90s: the neighborhood was marketed as a funky and artistic place with cheap housing, and galleries and studios began to pop up in the neighborhood. I visited one such gallery called the Friendly Society on Easter Sunday with my host mom. The Friendly Society is run by two artists, one a fashion designer and one a painter, who work out of the space and exhibit all kinds of art. They also sell coffee and drinks. My host mom said on sunnier days she likes to visit the gallery and sit at the tables outside on the quiet, chestnut tree-lined street.
Kreuzberg maintains a reputation for being a funky artistic space today, unlike Prenzlauer Berg which is mostly understood as an affluent family neighborhood. Cuccuma, a coffee shop near the Gneisenauerstraße U-bahn station, embodies the Kreuzberg "vibe" with large framed collages which appear to be made from band posters or magazines.
This kind of change is just beginning to reach Neukölln, which is currently attracting high numbers of international residents moving in. I visited a cafe called Café Engels, which is tucked into a Plattenbau building covered with graffiti. The cafe is somewhat out of place in the area, and seems to be trying to fit into the more gritty character of the Neukölln neighborhood.
Finally, I've included a shop that is just a few blocks away from my own home-stay in Schöneberg called Winterfeldt Schokoladen. It doubles as a coffee shop that sells "chocochinos" in addition to the standard array of coffee drinks and as a chocolate shop. Winterfeldt Schokoladen is in a bustling area near the Nollendorfplatz U-bahn station which is always busy at any time of the day or night and where on Saturdays and Wednesdays a large market springs up.
The funny thing is, if I were to walk down 2 or 3 blocks in any direction, the neighborhood changes. Just within Schöneberg, I have visited tiny Spätkaufs with 1-euro take-away coffee and "roasteries" with 6-euro lattes. In my attempt to represent Berlin neighborhoods' characters, what I really discovered is that there exist infinite degrees of variation within every Berlin neighborhood, and indeed within ever Berlin street. It is useful and interesting to trace patterns of change and culture throughout the city, but the real joy of this project is the reminder that in Berlin, there is always something new to discover.
Note: I hope to include a few more coffee shops in this project before I leave Berlin!
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