IN BERLIN, END OF YEAR BRINGS MORE ATTRACTIONS AND PLENTY OF ART

Almost two decades after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the German capital keeps attracting record numbers of visitors from North America, who come to experience the lifestyle, diverse cultural scene and living history of the city. Despite a strong Euro, the first six months of 2008 showed record numbers in guest arrivals from North America, with increases of 4.5% from the USA and 15.3% from Canada. Fall and winter of 2008 have even more to offer, with significant new art highlights and further tourism developments.

â–º Berlin Modernism Housing Estates Received UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Status
On July 7, 2008, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee added Berlin's modernism urban housing estates to its Cultural Heritage list. The six urban housing areas are testimony to the innovative housing policies implemented from 1913 until 1934, especially during the Weimar Republic, when the city of Berlin was particularly progressive socially, politically and culturally. The residential areas are regarded as outstanding examples of the building reform movement that contributed to improving housing and living conditions for workers through novel approaches to urban planning, architecture and landscape design. Bruno Taut, Martin Wagner and Walter Gropius were among the leading architects of these projects, which exercised considerable influence on the development of housing around the world.
The listed residential areas include the Gartenstadt Falkenberg (Bruno Traut), the Siedlung Schillerpark (Bruno Traut, Franz Hoffmann), the Großsiedlung Britz (Bruno Traut, Martin Wagner), Wohnstadt Carl Legien (Bruno Traut, Franz Hillinger), Weiße Stadt (Bruno Ahrends, Wilhelm Büning, Otto Rudolf Salvisberg), and Siemensstadt (Otto Bartning, Fred Forbat, Walter Gropius, Hugo Häring, Paul Rudolf Henning, Hans Scharoun).
Germany now has 33 sites represented on the UNESCO World Heritage list, three of which are in Berlin and Potsdam. Currently some 10,000 people live in the Berlin Modernism Housing Estates. Local tour companies offer guided tours.

â–º Private Contemporary Art Collection on Display in WWII Bunker
In June of 2008, collector Christian Boros opened his extensive collection of contemporary art to the public. On permanent display in a converted 1942 air raid bunker in Berlin's Mitte district, the collection consists of about 500 works by artists such as Damian Hirst, Olafur Eliasson, Elizabeth Peyton, Wolfgang Tillmans, Anselm Reyle.
The first showing of selected exhibits focuses on works which incorporate the bunker's space itself: sculptures, room and light installations, as well as performance works that aim to create a new experience of the bunker's interiors. Most of the works were installed and staged by the artists themselves, and sometimes altered in order to overcome the challenging space.
The former "State Railway Bunker" was constructed in 1942 to protect up to 2,000 passengers from the Berlin- Friedrichstrasse railway station and local citizens during the Allied air raids. After the surrender of Germany, the Red Army took over the bunker and turned it into a prison, and from the 1950s on it was used for fruit and vegetable storage. Boros purchased the building in 2003, and spent the next five years converting the bunker's interior into some 32,000 square feet or exhibit space, and the roof top into a penthouse and roof garden. The building's monumental character has been preserved, and markings of the war as well as the different uses of the building are still visible on the buildings exterior and interior.

The collection Christian Boros can be viewed on weekends by prior appointment. English language tours are available on Sundays, and can be reserved on the website. Further information and press images at www.sammlung-boros.de
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â–º "Cult of the Artist" Features ten Themed Exhibitions
Art Fall 2008 kicks off in October of 2008, when Berlin's National Museums put the spotlight on a cycle of major exhibitions, each featuring influential cult artists. On October 1, 2008, the Old National Gallery on Museum Island will open the first two of the ten exhibitions, which will run into February of 2009 and explore artists' myth from the past, as well as cult artists of the 20th century.
A special highlight of the exhibition series will be the Paul Klee retrospective, ‘The Klee Universe’ and Jeff Koons’ ‘Celebration’, both shown at the Mies van der Rohe-designed New National Gallery, from October 31, 2008 until February 8, 2009.
Meanwhile the Hamburger Bahnhof will be putting the spotlight on the two prophetical artists of the recent past, Andy Warhol (October 3, 2008 until January 11, 2009) and Joseph Beuys (October 3, 2008 until January 25, 2009). More information and downloadable images at www.smb.museum
â–º Cult of the Artist: The Klee Universe
Titled "The Universe of Klee – Cult of the Artist", Berlin's New National Gallery will dedicate an extensive retrospective to the work of Paul Klee (1879-1940). >From October 31, 2008, until February 8, 2009, some 250 of the artist's paintings will offer a comprehensive overview of Klee's work and life. The 2008 retrospective will be the third Klee exhibition staged at the New National Gallery. Twice during the artist's lifetime his work was displayed in Berlin, the first time exactly 85 years ago. "The Klee Universe" will be presented thematically, focusing on Klee's life and his role as an artist, as well as his interaction with contemporary artists, movements, and ideas. It attempts to show a complete circle of ideas and images in which the artist documents and interprets his world. New National Gallery, www.smb.museum
â–º DDR (GDR) Museum Welcomed 500,000th Visitor
Since its opening two years ago, Berlin GDR Museum has become one of the most visited of Berlin's 175 museums. This summer the 500,000th visitor was welcomed to experience everyday life behind the "Iron Curtain", and learn about a part of Germany history that ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, almost 20 years ago. Original everyday items from the former socialist East Germany are on display in different thematic areas, and visitors are encouraged to touch the displays, relax in a East Berlin 1970s living room, listen to GDR rock, watch authentic GDR television, rummage through drawers and closets, or sit in an original GDR-made Trabant car for a simulated drive through a concrete-slab housing estate.
The exhibitions is enhanced by documentaries, which can be watched from original GDR movie theater chairs.
The museum is expecting even more visitors in 2009, when Berlin will be commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall. More information and images at www.ddr-museum.de

October 1, 2008   Posted in: Georgia (E. Europe)