On 18 September, Berlin votes for a new government. A comparison of the campaign brochures produced by the five parties currently in parliament reveals few themes where real differences can be found, particularly in matters of urban policy. The political colour spectrum merges into a single unified colour. This colour can be defined. Mixing the signature colours of the five political parties – SPD, Grüne, CDU, Linke and FDP – results in a shade of brown (RGB 65/96/36, CMYK 14/40/80/20).

→ rgb1659636.net

Flacid: the Black & Decker KR 500 CRE Pansy Pants

After a recent drilling session ended in the usual fit of foaming-mouthed rage, I decided to blame to the tool and get my hands on something a bit more pro, just out of curiosity. The guy at the counter of my local DIY store did a lousy job of hiding a knowing smirk when I told him I’d been using a Black & Decker, which I’d admittedly bought out of a vague sense of patriotism a few years ago. Like a kindly doctor he gently recommended an 800W Bosch GBH 3-28 DFR. “A completely different quality of drilling,” he noted. “Like the difference between a rocket and a …”, and then after some careful consideration, “… and a tennis ball”.

Thrilling drilling: the Bosch GBH 3-28 DFR God of Thunder

Doctor Drill was right: a bit of Bosch GBH was exactly what was needed. The drill bit melted into the wall like the proverbial hot knife through butter, and once the six holes were done (which took little more than two minutes) I seriously started wondering if I shouldn’t just carry on, and drill a few more holes for the future. You never know when you might need a good hole.

I have since reflected that a country’s tools must surely be a reflection of the substances they are required to work. A hole in the wall of a Victorian terraced house in England may require nothing more than a domestic-grade Black & Decker tennis ball. But before an Ø8mm wall plug can be sunk into the fired ceramic bricks of a Berlin Altbau, some serious Stuttgart-made shit must be wielded. It’s a simplistic and worringly nationalistic reading of the situation, and doesn’t take Black & Decker’s entire product range into account nor the international market in which Bosch operates, but I’m a convert all the same. I now Know. The bad workman always blames his tools. Maybe so, but a good workman is also able to pass informed, if frothing-mouthed, judgment on ones felt to be woefully inadequate.

And here’s Juergen Mayer’s accompanying press release text:

JOH 3 – New Apartmenthouse Johannisstraße 3, Berlin

Property development group Euroboden is building a unique apartment house at Johannisstraße in Mitte, Berlin’s downtown district. J. MAYER H. architects’ design for the building, which will soon neighbor both Museum Island and Friedrichstrasse, reinterprets the classic Berliner Wohnhaus with its multi-unit structure and green interior courtyard. A suspended lamella facade not only provides privacy but also draws historical reference to the elaborately decorated facades from the Wilhelminian period. Plans for the ground floor facing the street also include a number of commercial spaces. The generously sized apartments will face south-west, opening themselves to a view of the calm, carefully designed courtyard garden. Spacious, breezy transitions to the outside create an open residential experience in the middle of the city that, thanks to the variable heights of the different building levels, also offers an interesting succession of rooms. The units’ varying floorplans and layouts indicate a number of housing options; condominiums are organized into townhouses with private gardens, classic apartments or penthouses with a spectacular view of the old Friedrichstadt. The integrated design concept, which incorporates everything from façade to stairwells, elevators to apartment interiors, promises a unique spatial and living experience with an eye to high design.

This seems more the language of a property developer than the artist-cum-architect, and I wonder who really penned these words. As far as the new building’s “historical reference to the elaborately decorated facades from the Wilhelminian period”: really? I have to be honest and state that this is not far off from the tricky-ricky lingo we’ve become accustomed to whist browsing promotional material for such projects as The Fellini Residences.

And the last sentence is pure fluff. The architect – who has been touted by several publications as one of the hottest young German designers of the last few years – appears misguided in the approach he’s taken to representing his own work. Why not save such low-brow stuff for the people who actually have to sell the real estate? Because consumers and producers of culture, to whom an architect would presumably be directing such a press release, generally want to use their minds while reading such blurbs.

The headline is deliberately obscure, and meant to be educational. Those are the Inuktitut words for ‘seal’, with Inuktitut being the name of some of the Inuit languages spoken way north of the Canadian tree line.

The photo above was shot in Berlin though, last week. And I have to say, it does look as though a seal has been bludgeoned to death right here. My guess is that there’s a more rational explanation: spilt red paint from the DIY store just out of shot, or someone let off several kilos of Chinese firecrackers here at New Year, and the red paper wrappers are now dissolving away in the snow. Now maybe someone can tell me what the Inuktitut word for ‘blood-stained snow’ is.

Over the last two weeks, a continuous cycle of thawing and refreezing has turned these glass ledges into a kind of slow-motion pasta machine for snow.

That was worth sharing with y’all now, right?

My dudes, it’s all out there. You just have to find it.

I’m using all my powers of Holmesian abductive reasoning, but I just can’t figure out what this little hut is for. All I can say about it for sure is that it’s dorky. Let’s just run through the facts:

– It has a tapered roof
– It is connected to a wood conduit
– It is braced to the ground
– It is made of cheap, maybe found building materials
– It has no openings

So whatever is inside needs to be protected from the weather. Whatever is inside probably needs electricity to work, and might even be sending signals back out through a cable in the conduit. Being braced to the ground, it’s contents are important enough to warrant a modicum of security. Cheap materials hint at a quick solution to an impromptu problem. And the lack of openings rules out the need for regular access.

I am inclined to propose that the hut contains an electric dog which monitors traffic. Whatever the case, I’m damned if it isn’t just a dorky little hut.

However, I was amused to find that the penmanship was of the same dire, subliterate quality that you’d expect to find in a junior school boy’s loo. From the original German, SLAB translates:

– Whoever reads this is stupid.
– Whoever wrote that is even more stupid.
– Whoever reacts to that is the stupidest.
– And what about the one reacting to the reaction?

I anticipate this casual observation will now become something of a hobby: spotting lowbrow scrawlings in highbrow settings. Something along those lines. Send us your own finding on a postcard to the usual address.

Having snobbishly berated Berlin for its lack of density in the post before last, it suddenly occured to me that I’d stopped in the street a day earlier to photograph exactly that. Admittedly, I used the zoom on my camera to flatten the depth of field, but only a little bit.

And what, perchance, should be responsible for this slight whiff of metropolitain glamour? The Berlin Townhouses, also berated by us, way back in the day. We truely know nothing.