January 18th, 2016

 

David Bowie in Berlin [Part 2]

The world continues to be gripped by ‘Bowie-mania’. If you have missed the torrent of reporting and comment on the singer’s death over the past week, you must have been living in a cave or on another planet. We mentioned Bowie’s time in Berlin on the Next Estate blog here:  https://www.next-estate.de/blog/2016/01/14/hauptstrasse-berlin-Germany/

Undoubtedly, Berlin played a huge part in Bowie’s creative life. Three albums – Low, Heroes and Lodger, all produced in collaboration with Brian Eno – came to be known as the Berlin triptych. In fact, only one, Heroes, was recorded entirely in Berlin.

Prenzlauer Berg – Iggy Pop, Brian Eno

Bowie later described his time in Berlin in the late Seventies as one of the happiest periods of his life. Of course, it was a very different city then: the wall was to come down only in 1989; it was a cauldron of frenzied hedonism surrounded by the dour East. For Bowie and his companion Iggy Pop, drugs played a huge part in their lives.

It is now four decades since Bowie moved to Berlin. It is scarcely possible to discern which parts of the city were in the East and which in the West. Look at the elegant properties in Prenzlauer Berg now and it is hard to imagine that in Bowie’s time, they were crumbling, many still bearing the scars of the battle for Berlin as Soviet forces moved into to secure the defeat of Hitler at the end of the Second World War. (If you want a flavour of what the area looked like, seek out a book – 1055 Berlin: der Prenzlauer Berg 1980-1990 – whose evocative black-and-white photographs give a real feel of place in that era.)

Yes, Berlin is a city transformed. It is more than a quarter of a century since the wall fell. It is no longer a land-locked island of cultural mayhem and excess surrounded by grim austerity. And remarkably, some of the most attractive spots for people seeking Berlin property for sale are in exactly those areas which were once in the old East.

Prenzlauer Berg is only one. Friedrichshain, now with some of the city’s best areas for eating and drinking, is another. And it is now hard to imagine that Mitte – reckoned these days to have the most expensive residential real estate in Berlin – was once in the communist part of the city.

In truth, the Berlin of David Bowie’s era was a weird and particular place. The reunified city is profoundly different. But the strand which connects the Seventies with today is Berlin’s irrepressible vibrancy and eagerness to embrace new things. It was those qualities that excited Bowie. It is those qualities that excite us now.

Meanwhile in London ‘David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ Sang By Dolphin Activists Outside Japanese Embassy At Taiji Demonstration In London’ !http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/01/16/david-bowie-heroes-dolphin-activists-japanese-embassy-taiji_n_8998846.html