Big art

I've had a few friends and family out to visit now, and they've all commented on the amount of graffiti in east Berlin. Both its ubiquity and size. It really is everywhere, from small doorway ledges to table tennis tables to massive sides of buildings. It comes in lots of different forms - you've got your normal teenager tags and playful stencils, of for example a guy pissing up against the wall, or a dog in space. And as well as graffiti that can be done quickly in the dead of night, there are also intricate works of art which must take days (and therefore need permission) to make.

Over the Oberbaum bridge from Friedrichshain to Kreuzberg, there are always tons of people taking pictures of a huge piece of graffiti of a professional man whose hands are tied together with clock handcuffs. A salutary warning of the dangers of being bound to your work by time that you imagine many of the residents of the bars and clubs around Schlesisches Tor heed. A little further down the road is another of a giant head - made up of many smaller bodies - about to eat one of the small bodies. Answers on a postcard to the meaning of this please. The italian artist who created this - Blu - doesn't just make static images, but - like a cartoon - creates amazing graffiti films like this with characters running over walls, down streets and across buildings.

A little further downstream is another huge piece of art, and this one is firmly in the tourists guides and in the scripts of the many tourists boat comperes that are go out through east Berlin and the canals of Kreuzberg. Molecule man represents the three eastern boroughs of Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain and Treptower and provides a pretty good backdrop to a riverside run as the sun rises or sets, or a swim in the Badeschiff - a floating swimming pool in the river.

And now - as the city tries to pull more tourists to the east, the graffiti is becoming a tourist attraction in itself. You can buy books about it and get guided tours. And I think this is helping to change how some - who have usually associated it as a form of anti-social behaviour - view graffiti. Less as a sign that demarcates a dodgy ally or run down area, and more as an art form in its own right, which is organic, accessible and collaborative.

Rummelsburger Ufer

I couldn't have been less motivated. It was 6:30am and drizzling heavily. Half of my mouth was in sheer agony and I knew that the majority of today's route took me 3km past power stations, cement factories and water plants. But this is the sort of image that makes up the classic 'training-really-hard-for-something-and-overcoming-the-odds' montage clip that sets films apart. But I hadn't been running since my wisdom tooth came out and I was feeling guilty.

 

The long stretch of Köperniker Chaussee which connects Friedrichshain with the old town of Köpernik is a bit of a no-man's land. Cars going from A to B and some pretty enormous factories along the way. But in an effort to redevelop the area next to the river, some pretty fancy flats had been built at the end of the 1990s. And because the Rummelsburger Ufer apartments now hide the riverfront from the main road, its a pretty tranquil run alongside the Spree until you get to the small harbour at the end and are forced back onto the motorway. You can get a good impression from this aerial shot here, or from the photos that were taken on a slightly sunnier occasion.

By the time I ran back through housing complex, with its yoga studios and riverside benches, I was in a good mood. Singing along to my Rocky theme tune equivalents of Independent Women and Borderline had made me totally forget about my toothache. You always feel better after a run.

Karl-Marx Allee

 

I've now run up, down, across and under Karl Marx Allee countless times. No surprise given it is an enormous boulevard stretching nearly 2km to connect Friedrichshain with Mitte. I now love the  grandeur of the huge Stalinist apartments which run up both sides of the street to the Frankfurter Tors at the eastern end, all of which provide one of the best frames in Berlin for the TV tower that rises up from the western end.

The apartments were built in the 1950s as palaces for workers to celebrate the importance of the ordinary labourer. After Stalin's death, Khrushchev favoured less majestic surroundings for East Berlin citizens, believing everyone should live more basically, and ordered the construction of large, pre-fabricated buildings in the city's outskirts. But the wedding cake style of the boulevard remained, although it had its name changed from Stalin Allee to Karl Marx Allee.

Karl Marx Allee always reminds me of my first day in Berlin, when traipsing its full 2km in the rain and ending up in Alexander Platz, I did actually think we had come on holiday to Khrushchev era Berlin. But luckily that only lasted a day, and when I opened my eyes a bit more, saw all the amazing things Berlin had to offer.

The traffic light man

All but a smidgen of my running so far has been in what was East Berlin (and the former GDR). So its not too much of a surprise that I have come across plenty of Ampelmännchen. These are the recognisable and much loved green and red be-hatted traffic light men that normally indicate you are in the east of the city. They were designed in the late 50s by Karl Peglau who thought not all motorists could distinguish between the red, amber and green colours of traffic lights. During the GDR, they became characters in cartoon books and TV programmes (red man for dangerous situations, green man for advisable situations). So it is no wonder that they were retained after reunification and that they have become a mainstay of "Ostalgie" (nostalgia for East Germany).

 

What is more endearing is that they have been picked up as a symbol for wider Berlin tourism (the tourist shops around Museum Island are packed out with Ampelmännchen mugs, tea towels, ashtrays etc etc) and that other Germany citys (including in the former West Germany) have also adopted them. And, better still, there is an Ampelfrau. Traffic light feminism!

Traffic lights have frustrated me a bit today. Dutifully stopped and waited at what seemed like loads during my run, and then apparently (according to a policeman) jumped one later in the day on my bike and got a 100 euro fine!

Stone pavements and concrete walls

Getting into some decent distances now. Part of this morning's route took me 1.3km alongside a construction that has come to symbolise both division and reunion. The East Side Gallery is the longest remaining stretch of the wall, and although it is far from its original form (barbed wire and watch towers replaced by wall paintings by 100 artists), it still feels as though the weight of history surrounds you as you run past it. You can see those paintings here.

The wall is marked elsewhere in the city, most famously at Checkpoint Charlie, but also as a cobblestone line understatedly snaking over the streets in the residential district of Treptow and and other areas (I'm sure I'll get a photo of these in a later blog). The gallery was first painted in 1990 and has had to be repainted to cover up the graffiti and erosion. However, some of the original artists did not approve of this 'repair' work and have organised against it.

Early morning runs have also taken me past workmen repairing the pavements (which everyone presumably does approve of), sections of which are made up of lots of small stone squares rather than big pavement slabs. They use large rubber mallets - maybe to keep the noise down for those still sleeping! This looks pretty as it is, but has also formed part of another unassuming but emotive memorial to another chapter in Germany's history (again, will get photos for later).

The BASF building

There are some buildings you walk past everyday, remark upon, and then don't give a further thought to. The BASF building near Warschauer Straße is one of those. The way its glass box shaped upper stories appear to be resting on two eaves of the brick house below means that it is landmark on the bridge between Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg, but I've not come across it in a tourist guide. You probably won't heard of BASF but you'll more than certainly own something that contains their products. According to wikipedia, they are the largest chemical company in the world. From humble beginnings installing gas works for a local council in 1865, via links with the notorious IG Farben in the 30s and 40s, they now help make products such as plastic knives and forks, DVD cases, the foam in the seat of your car and herbicides that some of your food may be produced with. And in that way the products BASF helps make are a bit like its Berlin office, we see and use the final products every day but rarely think about whats inside.