RAW Skatehalle - Nike SB Shelter (Friedrichshain)

The RAW Skatehalle is not new, it's part of the bottom-up initiatives for which Berlin is famous, famous as the RAW Tempel area, that was the "Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk" - the area where the trains were repaired and improved. The area was named after Franz Stenzer (a german communist killed by the Nazis in Dachau) and after the WWII was deeply damaged. The area is now used by RAW Tempel e.V. as place for studios and production spaces for artists of all genres, and cultural events (like the Craft Bier Fest).

Now, after Redbull which has invested in the Mellowpark Bmx & Skateboard and the Converse Space 002, it has been time for Nike to put the signature under another underground part of the city.

Basicly the return in term of image and PR for those companies is so big, that they have understood that to create approval from these communities, it's important to do something real without overdo.

The Nike SB Shelter has been inaugurated January 2014 and in July it has hosted the first big event with a competition.

More infos: skatehalle-berlin.de

Map: http://goo.gl/maps/9kQYz

All images are under CC Creative Commons (Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works), please refer to " darioj laganà | www.norte.it ".

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Itinerary #1 - Potsdamer Platz

This is a new section of the Blog that will bring you on a walk in Berlin, through different places and buildings, with just a hint of history and curiosities, dealing with different aspects of the city. Just walk and discover a bit more of it !!

Full map: http://goo.gl/maps/9dUrJ

You can start this itinerary from Potsdamer Platz (2), already too famous, but in the square you'll find the first traffic lights in Continental Europe, sets on 20 October 1924.

From here you can go to have a look at the Georg Elser Monument (1), who tried to kill Hitler (http://goo.gl/ljiem).

Then, going south you'll arrive at the train station Anhalter Bahnhof (3), called "Gateway to the South", of which you can just see the surviving central portion of the facade (it has been demolished in 1960).

Not far from here there's also a air-raid shelter (4), a massive concrete block, which is now the Berliner Gruselkabinett.

On the other side of the shelter, there's the interesting white Tempodrom (5), an event venue, which was initially launched in 1980 as a kind of alternative circus in a tent on the west side of the Potsdamer Platz, then moved here.

Leading south and walking by the river on Hallesches Ufer, you'll arrive in Mehringplatz, a square surrounded by buildings on a circular base. Under the arches of these buildings and going again a bit north, there are very interesting photorealistic graffiti (6).
Last stop of this small walk is The Metal Workers Union building - Industriegewerkschaft Metall (7), a modernist building by the same architect of the Einsteinturm (http://goo.gl/rnBN4), Erich Mendelsohn, but the style is totally different.

(4) Air-raid shelter

(3) Anhalter Bahnhof

(6) Graffiti

(5) Tempodrom

(1) Georg Elser Monument

(2) the first traffic lights

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Fichte-Bunker

The Fichte-Bunker is a 19th century gasometer (gas was used for street lighting) in Kreuzberg, that was made into an air-raid shelter in World War II and subsequently was used as a shelter for the homeless and for refugees.

The Fichtebunker has been realized starting from a gasometer in stone , built in 1874 when Berlin was expanding and needed to feed the gas street lamps . It's a round structure 56 meters high which holds 30,000 square meters covered with gas. When then there was the passage lighting with electricity, the gasometer was abandoned until 1940.

There is an important point of no return in Berlin and its citizens during the Second World War when the war expanded to bombing on the capital. The first of these attacks takes place on the night of 25 August 1940 and were bombed the area near the airport Tempelhof and Siemensstadt ( industrial area to the north west). Unexpected and unplanned, were feared and from that moment it was necessary to seek shelter with a run to the construction of air-raid bunkers and fortresses which will last until '43 .

Fritz Todt (German engineer , as well as SA- Obergruppenführer) then decided to turn the structure into a bomb shelter. Made of 6 levels with the addition of interior walls and ceilings reinforced concrete often up to 3 meters, took advantage of the work of prisoners of war and Zwangsarbeiter (forced laborers).

Originally designed for 6,000 people in need of protection, during the bombing of 1945 about 30,000 people were made ​​to enter . Even the local police, to prevent escapes, he transferred the prisoners in the bunker and some rooms were converted into cells. Despite the significant bombing the bunker survived the war virtually unscathed.

After the war, the former gasometer was initially used as a retirement home , then as a juvenile detention center and later as a homeless shelter until 1963. During the Cold War was then used for the preservation of part of the reserve of the Senate , able to cram something like 7,000 tons of goods in the event of war with Germany.

The building was forgotten again after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but then in 2000 Berliner Unterwelten began to rearrange the place and arrange tours within the structure.

More infos: WIKI
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/QVPlq

All images are under CC Creative Commons (Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works), please refer to " darioj laganà | www.norte.it "

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Humboldthain Flakturm

The Flak tower of Humboldthain is one of the 3 towers on Berlin, built during the WWII by order of Hitler to defend the city after 1940.

It has been used also civilian shelter, with room for 10,000 civilians, and even a hospital ward, inside.

According to the end of the war, the tower was partially demolished; as most of these huge concrete structures, it has not been possible to fully demolish them (the interior walls can be of 3,5-4 meters).

Today the tower is fully inside the Humboldthain Park and one side of the tower has been filled with debris from the WWII collapsed buildings and is now a hill to access the highest point of the tower.

The interior can be visited (infos: Berlin Unterwelten)

Thanks to Berlino Explorer (http://www.berlino-explorer.com)

More infos: WIKI
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/X5JO9

All images are under CC Creative Commons (Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works), please refer to " darioj laganà | www.norte.it "

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