Berlin Reified | Food, design and life in Berlin

Grubentücher, Linen tea towels, or Washing up in style

 

I've admired Sgaminegg's ample linen-cotton dishtowels for so long; now I have two of my own. The tag tells me Ruhrgebiet coal miners used these Grubentücher to rub themselves clean after a hard day's work. I'm merely grateful for a kitchen towel that isn't sodden after drying three pots.

Buy your own for 3.40 EUR at the Pomeranza Design Ranch, a newish shop/cafe that has won me over with its carefully selected mix of local and European designers. They also do a mean espresso, best accompanied by one of their crumbly, not-too-sweet peanut butter cookies (a snip at 30 cents).

Pomeranza Design Ranch, Raumerstraße 19, Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg (map)
Open Mo-Fr 10am-7pm, Sa 11am-6pm
Tel. (030) 4849 5760

Small caps (Letterpress in Berlin)

photo borrowed from Sabrina's Flickr stream

Longtime readers will understand my excitement on discovering Sabrina and her Berlin-based letterpress design studio Small Caps. Aren't the TV Tower and the Brandenburg Gate quite jaunty in turquoise? But I think my favorite is the World Time Clock.

A tree grows in Moritzplatz

Wouldn't we all like to make our own seasons? Take a bare set of branches (a beautiful deep impression), stamp on petals and birds at will, and find yourself in mid-spring, deep summer, or elsewhere.  Nicole Bednarzyk and Sylke Rademacher dreamt up this set, on sale at their stylish shop dedicated to sustainable design, schœner.wærs.wenns.schœner.wær. Alongside their own creations you'll find all manner of home accessories, sweet toys and -- rare for Berlin -- exquisite stationery, backed by a sleek espresso bar. (James, this will be your thank-you card, but for now: the books are amazing.)

schöner wärs wenns schöner wär (Conceptstore für nachhaltiges Design), Oranienstr. 58a, Berlin-Kreuzberg (map)
Open M-F 11am-7pm, Sat noon-4pm
Tel. +49 30 43201488

Esst Obst!

I've long loved these simple paper bags so when I saw Do you read me?!'s FoodMarketo contribution I had to smile.

Ceramic shards

And for the first time in a long time I was compelled to throw open the windows. These pottery shards -- chosen out of a basket from my beloved Jutta Altenstein's Ackerstraße workshop -- fluttered in the gust of wind.

Jutta Altenstein Werkstatt, Ackerstr. 18, Berlin-Mitte (map)
Open M-F 2pm-6pm

Beautiful Wooden Toys

 
Wünsch' Dir Was has the best wooden toys, and Ursula Wünsch is such a charmer! I can't wait until S is old enough to join one of her creative afternoon courses.

The perfect children's book (Leute/Blexbolex)

And you can just imagine my pleasure watching S scrutinize Blexbolex's wry illustrations.  If you're looking for the perfect birthday present for a little one (or anyone), swing by pro qm for a copy.

Balkon & Garten Nr. 33

I love the hand-sewn binding on the latest issue of Balkon & Garten. (Those in Berlin can swing by Do you read me?! to take a peek.)

Wimmelbücher

With babies comes bedtime, and with bedtime comes books. My latest love is Rotraut Susanne Berner's detail-packed quartet of volumes tracing the everyday life of a few characters through the seasons. I couldn't resist picking up the Sommer-Wimmelbuch whilst browsing through Katalka the other day, and have resolved to buy the further three volumes as each season comes round. S knows a good thing when she spots it, and I wish you could have seen the speed with which she crawled over to the book (easily half her size still). At the moment, she is up to little more than carefully turning each thick page with intense concentration, but I look forward to bedtime discussions a year or two down the road where we debate precisely why the nun has a penguin-shaped balloon and whether we think Santosh is enjoying the birthday party.

While we're on the subject, really: Wimmelbücher? An entire word for the genre -- for it is a genre, at least in the German-speaking world -- of oversized picture books depicting dozens of mini-narratives? Delightful stuff. And yes, while you could compare it to the Where's Waldo series, I think what's key about, say, Berner's work is that there is no Waldo privileged over the other characters.

Oh, it makes me look forward to the autumn!

Katalka, Raumerstr. 21, Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg (map)
Open M noon-7pm, Tu-Fr 10am-7pm, Sat 10am-2pm
Tel. 49 30 4985 3377

On photography & RSVP (stationery in Mitte)

It kills me that I didn't have a blog when I moved to Berlin some nine years ago. Berlin Reified prompts me to notice, to photograph, to record. I did less of that then, and now, what I wouldn't do for a picture of the pocked facade at Oranienburger Straße 2, where I spent, perhaps, the happiest spring of my life, living in a room sub-sublet from the man who would go on to found Dr. Pong. And how I would like just one image of the crumbling brickwork at Gleimstraße where, one day, a brick dislodged itself and fell onto a passer-by, prompting a visit from the police.

It's not just the absence of a blog that stilled my hand, of course. Susan Sontag was right. I hesitated to photograph these places I loved because I hated to admit the transience of their beauty. To admit that facade was beautiful, to photograph it because I knew the scaffolding and the workmen were inevitable, would tempt fate, I feared, and would (I thought with some unreasonable superstition) hasten that pace of change.

You smirk, and the world smirked too. Now the facades are bright and neat, and my abstinence from photography failed to stay the renovations and gentrification that have rippled across the various streets where I lived. Instead I pore over photographs of places so recently changed and they wrench my heart, these photographs I could have taken. Slowly I realize each neighborhod has its lifespan, and I lift my head to fresh woods and pastures new.

I don't think to mention those places I found and delighted over so many years ago. Doesn't everyone know about RSVP? Yet working on my Berlin guide has meant revisiting old favorites while seeking out new treasures. Perhaps you don't know about RSVP, and would like to take a needle and pierce two points in a map of the world and bind them with a red string to connect yourself to that person you love above all else. RSVP is the place to find a postcard set, complete with needle and crimson thread, that will permit you to do this. The tidily designed shop is also stocked with Portuguese notebooks, Perugian woodcuts and exquisite little illustrations by Su-Pyo Lee.

RSVP, Mulackstr. 14 (map)
Open M-Sat noon - 7pm
Tel. (030) 280 94644