Berlin: Serene Images for a Hiatus

DSCF1431 It’s going to be quiet the rest of this week on Human Transit.  I’m in Canberra all week doing full days of meetings to brief various stakeholders about the Strategic Public Transport Network Plan that I have been doing for them over the last two years.

While waiting for new material, these images from Berlin’s Märkisches Museum U-bahn station may serve as a calming visual hold-music.  (Click to enlarge and sharpen.)  They’re a series of artworks clearly based on maps of Berlin from different times of in its history.  German Wikipedia tells me that they’re the work of Jo Doese, Karl-Heinz Schäfer, and Ulrich Jörke, and that they were completed in 1988, under communist rule, the year before the wall came down.  I enjoy their Deco-like cool and serenity.  (click below to continue)

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UPDATE:  Commenter Ed O points out something obvious that I missed in all this serenity:

The last map is a representation of East Berlin and the border between
the coloured and non-coloured parts of the map is the line of the
Berlin Wall. I think this probably would have been the ‘Berlin today’
map in the series when these works were created. This is a nice
reminder of the sort of propaganda foisted on East Germans at the time,
where in the City’s long history, somehow at sometime, West Berlin just
falls off the map. Here East Berlin is vividly represented, while West
Berlin is a visual blank. I guess at the time it was considered by the
government to be a foreign country and not part of the capital of the
GDR. More a political than an historical map – cool and serene perhaps
on an aesthetic level, but an intriguing snapshot of the times,
nevertheless.

5 Responses to Berlin: Serene Images for a Hiatus

  1. Pantheon October 20, 2009 at 6:05 pm #

    The last one looks like the map of a city, with the silver lines representing either light rail lines or freeways. For the sake of this mythical city, I hope it’s not the latter.

  2. desperateinkc October 20, 2009 at 8:17 pm #

    I wish you would come to Kansas City and help us. Tons of underused rail lines leading to a central station absolutely begging to be made into commuter rail network. 2 Million+ people and little to no public transport. HELP!

  3. Jarrett at HumanTransit.org October 21, 2009 at 12:13 am #

    They are all maps of the city, at different points in its history. The last one begins to show the future network of tram corridors extending east and north, but I’m sure they were just dirt roads at that time.

  4. Ed O October 21, 2009 at 6:24 am #

    The last map is a representation of East Berlin and the border between the coloured and non-coloured parts of the map is the line of the Berlin Wall. I think this probably would have been the ‘Berlin today’ map in the series when these works were created.
    This is a nice reminder of the sort of propaganda foisted on East Germans at the time, where in the City’s long history, somehow at sometime, West Berlin just falls off the map. Here East Berlin is vividly represented, while West Berlin is a visual blank. I guess at the time it was considered by the government to be a foreign country and not part of the capital of the GDR. More a political than an historical map – cool and serene perhaps on an aesthetic level, but an intriguing snapshot of the times, nevertheless.

  5. Thomas Doehler May 15, 2010 at 10:23 am #

    hi, nice picsfrom the u-bahn. i have find a nice map from berlin: http://www.berlin.citysam.de/stadtplan-berlin.htm the other one is like a travel guide with all sightseeing buildings in berlin and potsdam with “brandenburger tor, castle sanssouci, castle charlottenburg, the humbold university, the german reichstag, the siegessäule, the potsdamer place an many more..” http://www.berlin.citysam.de/berlin-reisefuehrer.htm – i hope you get little insipration from berlin. regards thomas