Word: berliner
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...chill wind is blowing through Mitte, the once drab district in central Berlin that is fast becoming hangout central for the world's creative types. Davide Grazioli, used to warmer climes, pulls his black woolly hat over his head and strides up Kastanien Allee - now dubbed Casting Alley because of all the wannabe film directors and actors who frequent its cafés. Grazioli is an Italian artist whose work includes unraveled embroideries from India and skulls made of organic incense. Three years ago, he moved to Berlin from Milan with his wife and young daughter, and though his German...
Germany has a lot of fine qualities, but being hip isn't usually thought to be one of them. Up-and-coming artists, especially ones from abroad, used to flock to London, Amsterdam or New York City rather than Hamburg, Munich or Cologne. As for Berlin, it hasn't been on the international cool list since Christopher Isherwood lived in the city in the early 1930s and chronicled the demise of its rambunctious culture under the Nazis. If foreigners came to visit, they were hippies, spies, U.S. Presidents or peeping tourists curious to catch a glimpse of communism from...
...decades after the Wall that cut through Berlin's heart came tumbling down, the city is once again a happening place, drawing a host of international designers, writers, architects, musicians and visual artists like Grazioli, some just to visit, many to stay. The influx is transforming the city. "Yes, artists from all over the world are now living in Berlin and, some nights, they all seemed to end up on my living-room sofa," says Jeffrey Eugenides, the American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who lived in Berlin from 1999 to 2003 and goes back every summer. "It's a much...
That's true. While the cost of housing can be an obsession in other cities, Berlin's plentiful supply of inexpensive pads is a key factor in its appeal. A big overhang of cheap apartments and abandoned factories and warehouses in the formerly communist eastern half has depressed prices throughout the city. Studio space is to be had for next to nothing. Even in Mitte, the center of Berlin's new Szene, newly renovated apartments rent for less than one quarter of what you'd pay in London. That's a big draw. But Berlin isn't just cheap. Some...
Counterculture to Capital Berlin has always been different. During the Cold War era it was a magnet for young West German gays, punks and pacifists who got out of doing military service by moving there. They remain an important part of the culture: there are still squats in derelict buildings, and a vibrant, semilegal club scene. "The place still has an outlawish feel," says James Docwra, who works for an agency that books DJs. But in the transition from hippy to hip, some of the anarchy of earlier times has gone, particularly since the government moved from Bonn...