august-2011

BERLIN’S TRAMWAY
All aboard
Three more cities in which to let the transport take the strain
■ Stockholm Built across 14 islands, you’re
never far from water in Stockholm, and there’s
no better way to travel than by boat. Jump
aboard a city ferry and glide through historic
locks, beneath elegant bridges and past
handsome rows of turn-of-the century houses,
or venture out on to the sparkling open water
of the Stockholm archipelago, where there
are another 25,000 islands to explore. On
a rainy day you can head underground for a
ride on the city’s tunnelbana metro system,
often described as the ‘longest art gallery in
the world’ due to the rotating art exhibits at
almost all of its 100 stations.
One of Moscow’s
‘people’s palaces’
Stockholm’s metro is a
subterranean gallery
42 Brussels Airlines b.there! magazine August 2011
IMAGE ALAMY
IMAGE GETTY IMAGES
IMAGE TIM E WHITE
■ Moscow Besides being a cheap, quick
network that carries up to nine million people
a day, Moscow’s subway is a working museum
of communist history and design. Venture
underground to discover a world of cool, lofty
atriums, marble columns, bronze sculptures
and glittering chandeliers. These stations
– or ‘people’s palaces’ – were conceived as
magnifi cent examples of Soviet success.
With some dedicated to the Revolution and
others to victory over Nazism, each has its
own elaborate, gold-trimmed story to tell.
Shiny stations ready
for London’s Olympics
■ London With the 2012 Olympics looming,
London’s transport system has undergone
a makeover and the new London Overground
features extended networks, spacious
carriages and refurbished stations. Traverse
the capital in a vast arc, from the boutiques of
Kensington to the galleries of Whitechapel,
or the bars of Shoreditch to the expanse of
Hampstead Heath. Alternatively, pick up
a ‘Boris’ rental bike – a £1 (€1.10) access fee
gets you 30 minutes of pedal power.
The famous TV tower
in Alexanderplatz is just
one landmark to be
seen from the tramway
Art trail
Berlin’s contemporary art scene is buzzing,
with artists flocking to the eastern districts
for their cheap rents and crumbling,
romantic industrial spaces. For a taste of
this creativity, jump on the M1 tram to
Brunnenstrasse in northern Mitte. Until
recently this was a wasteland of empty
storefronts and decrepit fast-food kiosks;
now it’s one of Berlin’s newest gallery hubs.
After Jan Winkelmann opened his
eponymous art space in the area six years
ago, others followed suit, including
experimental, artist-led spaces such as
Amerika and Diskus and internationals
such as Manhattan’s Goff + Rosenthal. The
minimalist Koch Oberhuber Wolff gallery –
designed by Arno Brandlhuber – serves as
an architecturally striking centrepiece.
Despite such developments, however, and
the inevitable bars and restaurants, there’s
still an evocative GDR-esque brutality to
this area. Visit now before it changes.
If you’re interested in grand, Communistera
architecture, take a trip on the M10 tram
along Karl-Marx-Allee, from Mitte and into
the depths of Friedrichshain. A staggering
90 metres wide, running between Hermann
Henselmann’s dual towers at Strausberger
Platz and Frankfurter Tor, this street is lined