Mind the Gap: What Next for the Kulturforum?

Just in time for spring weather and banks of daffodils come fresh plans for the Kulturforum on Potsdamer Platz. An ensemble of star cultural institutions in former West Berlin, the Kulturforum includes the Philharmonie (the Berlin Philharmonic), the Gemäldegalerie (Art Gallery), Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) and Staatsbibliothek (State Library). But the bland concrete lot between the Philharmonie and the Neue Nationalgalerie  has been a yawning gap in the cultural landscape, the bane of urban planners. Now here comes a scheme to convert this area into a green space, closed to traffic.

Sleeping Beauty
Time to kiss the Sleeping Beauty awake, says the Urban Planning Commission of the Berlin Senate. It proposes converting this grey area into a park-like landscape with trees, a sculpture garden, terrace, cafe and information pavilion. The buildings belonging to the Kulturforum will be illuminated to emphasize their distinctive form and function (Hans Scharoun designed both the Library and the Philharmonie, Mies van der Rohe the National Gallery), and the forum will host an annual cultural event such as an Arts Festival.

Get Real
Sounds good? Not every one is delighted. Michael Cullen, historian, weighed in with a sharp critique. "Do architects eat? Do they ever stop to have a drink?" he fumed in an article in Berlin's daily newspaper. Yes, the plans look good on an architect's drawing table (says Cullen), but let's get real. Why does Berlin need this green space when the Tiergarten is a stone's throw away? And when people come out of the concert hall, art gallery, museum or library after concentrating on culture for two or three hours, what they need most is somewhere to go with friends for a drink or a meal in the late hours. Look at London, Paris or New York. True urban centers mix culture with more elemental stuff.

Reply to Cullen
Now, Cullen is an authority on Berlin architecture -- in fact, it was Cullen who suggested the famous "Wrapped Reichstag" project to artists Jeanne-Claude and Christo back in the early 1970s, later staying on the team as historical advisor -- so who am I to take issue with his analysis? But I can't resist. Here are my counter-arguments:

a) Take a close look at the pubs and restaurants that we do have around Potsdamer Platz: variations of international chains at rip-off prices, targeted to tourists and avoided by Berliners. Do we honestly need a steakhouse next to St. Matthäuskirche (St. Matthew's Church) or laptop-toters on sofas in a Starbucks outside the Philharmonie's Chamber Music Hall?

b) Museum cafes have refreshments, and so does the Philharmonie during intermission. Now imagine a green space into which  concert-goers could spill on a warm summer evening, bringing their wine and cheese; where readers could take a break from the Rare Books Archive, bringing out a brown bag lunch around noon and nodding off for a while; where toddlers-in-tow who have had their fill of trailing behind parents in front of cubist paintings finally have a chance to scamper around. Sounds like just the ticket to me.

c) Also, if you want to head to a cosy pub or restaurant in the late hours in the Potsdamer Platz area, you don't need to draw a blank. About a five-minute walk from the Neue Nationalgalerie is a traditional Berlin restaurant with a warm, homely atmosphere and great food at affordable prices -- a tip from a colleague that I am loath to give away because I had enjoyed keeping this to myself as a "Geheim-Tipp." But all right, here it is: the Joseph-Roth-Diele on Potsdamerstr. 75.

So there, Mr. Cullen.

A note on JR: Joseph Roth was an Austrian writer, one of the finest literary journalists in the German-speaking countries in the 1920s and 30s. His best pieces were written for the Frankfurter Zeitung (now Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany's leading news sources) in the form of feuilleton. Still a staple feature of major European newspapers, feuilleton sections include literary-style book, theater and film reviews. Roth's reports from Berlin in the 1920s were collected as a guidebook in the 1990s and appears in a recent English translation as What I saw: Reports from Berlin, 1920-33.