World video travel guide

News • Berlin • Germany • 2012-07-24

“Why do I love Berlin?”

In the last few weeks I have come across the question, which I have often asked myself, on advertising columns all over Berlin. The posters are referring to the Guggenheim Lab - a controversial project that is being hosted in Berlin this summer. On a warm summer’s day, I make my way over to take a look at the much discussed ‘laboratory’ and possibly find an answer to my question. A workshop titled “Tourism Talks” is on the programme, led by Rachel from Cornwall.

The Guggenheim Lab is located in the back courtyard of the ‘Pfefferberg complex’ in the district of Prenzlauer Berg. When I arrive I find a futuristic-looking black pavilion roof in the courtyard with lots of cables hiding beneath. Under the roof there are chairs and tables decked with chalk, pens, post-its and paper. I sit down at the end of one of the rows of several pink chairs and look at the huge screen in front of us. First of all Rachel explains the idea behind the Guggenheim Lab - it should be an “interactive conference” in which all participants can be involved and thereby take more out of it than a normal conference. Today’s topic of “Sustainable Tourism” is not really anything new for me as a tourism graduate which is why I am more interested in the other attendees.

Sitting in the front row are two German students with cameras and a British man with his money bag around his neck; beside me sits an Italian in white linen, and behind me are a couple of German tourists with a city map. A few take headphones to hear the German and English translations respectively. After a forty-five minute PowerPoint presentation, the interactive part of the conference is introduced. Rachel asks us the questions “What is ‘green’ in Berlin?” Straight away I think of the numerous gardens and park: Berlin - the bicycle city - where you can discover the city with ‘sight-jogging’ or on solar-powered boats, and there is an ever-growing number of organic food shops and markets.

But how can Berlin become even “greener”? We get together in groups around the tables covered in paper, and we stick yellow, pink and blue notes with our ideas on to an outline map of Berlin. Where Alexanderplatz and the Museum Island are meant to be it reads “no cars inside the city centre” and “more bikes”. Along the River Spree I read “swimming in the river”, and on many other post-it notes it says “solar city”. I try to picture it all: cycling on the city highway, swimming next to the Friedrichstrasse train station and sipping cappuccino from a Solar Coffee Shop ... before I can dream any further, the British man tells us about his unusual idea: Energy could be collected through sensors in the dance floors of the many Berlin clubs; the more people dance, the more energy is produced.

At the end of our workshop, our ideas are immortalised on a big board on the lawn next to the pavilion. I feel a great sense of relief as I leave the Lab: As long as new ideas are still being developed, realised or rejected in Berlin, then I know why I love Berlin.

RSS • All news