Global Graphica

The side of a classic 19th Century apartment building in Prenzlauer-Berg in what was once East Berlin has been turned into a giant billboard for  a Nike  ”joga bonita” (“beautiful game”) soccer ad in a kind of illustrated, street-art style.

An expat British filmmaker friend of ours living in Berlin has an intriguing collection of furniture in his apartment, in the Prenzlauer-Berg neighborhood of the German capital. The awesomest item of decor and furnishing is the wall shelf that doubles as a light made from the letters “r” and “t” from the illuminated logo signage for a Smart car dealership. Fookin’ rad.

Picture of the eco-friendly and beautifully designed Casa Camper hotel in Berlin at night. The room numbers are displayed on the windows of each unit. The hotel has another location in Barcelona, Spain, and was developed by the Spanish shoe company Camper. The hotel aesthetic and ethos are aligned with the Camper brand.

Image de l’éco-amical et magnifiquement conçu hôtel Casa Camper à Berlin dans la nuit. Les numéros de pièce sont affichés sur les vitres de chaque unité. L’hôtel a un autre endroit à Barcelone, en Espagne, et a été développé par la société espagnole de chaussures Camper. L’esthétique et l’éthique hôtel sont alignés avec la marque Camper.

夜にベルリンで環境に優しく、美しくデザインされたホテルカーサカンペールの写真。部屋番号は、各ユニットの窓に表示されます。ホテルは、バルセロナ、スペインの別の場所を持っており、スペインの靴の会社のキャンピングカーによって開発されました。ホテルの美学と精神は、カンペールのブランドに整列している。

Pix of the beautifully designed entrance and gallery space of  Berlin Weekly (Berlin-Weekly.com) on Linienstraase, near the heart of the Berlin art and galleries district on Augustestrasse.

The artwork in the space changes weekly and is often focused on presenting a single work prominently at the front of its small storefront, which is illuminated at night.

The pix below include shots of stereographic images created by the fashion photographer  Valentino Griscioli. Instructions  explaining how to view the work and experience its 3D effect  appear on the glass window at the front of the gallery.

We love the minimal, clean package design of Bonanza Espresso, a brand of coffee roasted at the Bonanza Coffee Heroes cafe in Berlin’s Prenzlauer-Berg neighborhood, in the former East German part of the capital.

We found this wonderful piece of stencil street art in Berlin’s Scheunenviertel neighborhood in Mitte. The stencil image is of German chancellor Angela Merkel and has been spay painted onto a page of broadsheet newspaper and wheat-pasted to a stone wall.

One of many “Berlin is a Beach” street art posters we saw wheat-pasted around the hipper parts of Mitte around the Scheunenviertel and Prenzalauer-Berg areas in the eastern part of the German capital. The one pictured below was along Weinmeisterstrasse, near a slew of designer shops.

Global Graphica has been settling back into NYC after an excellent, fun and incredibly productive trip to Berlin. We met a lot of awesome people, went to a lot great places and saw tons of cool things while we were staying in the German capital. (We also had some remarkably good coffee and a few beers along the way.)

Our trip and the Global Graphica Berlin Project would not have been possible without the local knowledge, logistical support, and creative advice of a lot of great folks. So Global Graphica gives a big, mighty shout-out and “THANK YOU!” to Imre, Gero, Yui, Angelo, Adam, Sandra, Umbom, Carlo, Cory, Yasmindo, Claude, Claire, Ben, Damian and Haydee, Eric, and the folks at Keyser Soze, Casa Camper, and Bonanza Coffee Heroes. Danke!

We’ll be continuing to post images to the site from the Berlin Project in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned.

Tschüss!

Van

In 1995 the Bulgarian-French artist couple of Christo and Jeanne-Claude  wrapped the German parliament building or reichstag in polypropylene fabric. A billboard in the Brandenburger Tor U-Bahn station in Berlin displays an image of the epic artwork.

The minimal, beautifully designed clock in a Berlin U-Bahn (subway) station.

Poster in the Berlin neighborhood of Kruezberg for the “Temptation to be Good” art exhibition of works by artist Mercedes Helnwein at the Pool Gallery.

Some more station name signs from the Berlin U-Bahn. We love how each station’s signs are distinct in typography, design, spacing and color.

Street art in Berlin: From the platform of Eberswalder-strasse U-Bahn Station, you can see a massive mural of a cartoon bear running across the side of an apartment building in Prenzlauer-Berg. Love it.

As noted in a previous post, the symbol of the city of Berlin is a little bear.

A large collection of arty bears statues in the Ku’Damm area of Charlottenberg in Berlin. The figures are part of the United Bears Project and are dotted throughout Berlin. The project was launched in German capital in 2002. There are 140 bears in the city and these have traveled around the world to five continents to promote global peace initiatives. Each of the bears represents a country or city. The bear itself is significant for Berlin as it is the symbol of the city and appears on its flag and has been integrated into various logos and designs.

An exhibition about the Berlin Wall at the site of the former Checkpoint Charlie border-crossing in Kruezberg near Mitte shows documentary photographs of the late American artist Keith Haring famously painting the wall in the 1980s. Some of the images are from the archives of the former stasi or East German secret police.

Official municipal bike-parking signage with the coat-of-arms logo of Charlottenberg-Wilmersdorf in Berlin.

Mysterious logo stencil street art in the Hackescher Market area of Mitte, Berlin.

The massive, spacious, glass-sheathed central train station or hauptbahnhof in Berlin.

The diverse selection of daily newspapers and magazines in the rooftop cafe at the Casa Camper hotel in Berlin. Among the wonderful selection of titles: the International Herald Tribune, Die Welt, Berliner Zeitung, Financial Times,  Electronic Beats, Mitteschon.

Large street-art painting of Marlon Brando’s iconic image from the Francis Ford Coppola film “The Godfather” in the Hackescher Market area of Mitte, Berlin.