Challenge Bibendum

12 October 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, San Francisco Bay Area Reading Time:  4 minutes

© Michelin Challenge Bibendum

© Michelin Challenge Bibendum

The Michelin Challenge Bibendum is a major annual sustainable mobility event, sponsored by the French tire company Michelin. In 1998, executives at Michelin made the decision to host an event that would showcase technological research into “clean vehicles” and allow them to be assessed in real operating conditions.   read more…

Berlin Wall, Bernauer Strasse and East Side Gallery

13 August 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Berlin, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  9 minutes

Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall map © ChrisO

Berlin Wall map © ChrisO

The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the “death strip”) that contained anti-vehicle trenches, “fakir beds” and other defenses. The Soviet-dominated Eastern Bloc officially claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the “will of the people” in building a socialist state in East Germany. However, in practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.   read more…

Reconstruction of the Berlin City Palace, then known as Humboldtforum, approved

6 July 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Berlin, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  5 minutes

© eldaco

© eldaco

The Stadtschloss (English: Berlin City Palace), was a royal palace in the centre of Berlin, capital of Germany. The palace bore features of the Baroque style, and its shape, finalized by the mid 18th century, is attributed to Andreas Schlüter, whose first design is likely to date from 1702, though the palace incorporated earlier parts seen in 1688 by Nicodemus Tessin. It was the principal residence (winter residence) of the Hohenzollern Kings of Prussia from 1701 to 1918 (the German Emperors from 1871 to 1918) and a museum following the fall of the German Empire in 1918. Damaged by Allied bombing in World War II, although possible to repair at great expense, the palace was demolished in 1950 by the GDR authorities, despite West German protests. Following the reunification of Germany, it was decided to rebuild the Stadtschloss.   read more…

Reichstag building – the energy concept

13 April 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Berlin, Green Buildings, Green Technologies Reading Time:  8 minutes

Reichstag © Michael J. Zirbes

Reichstag © Michael J. Zirbes

The Reichstag building is a historical edifice in Berlin, Germany, constructed to house the Reichstag, parliament of the German Empire. It was opened in 1894 and housed the Reichstag until 1933, when it was severely damaged in a fire supposedly set by Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe. During the Nazi era, the few meetings of members of the Reichstag as a group were held in the Kroll Opera House. After the Second World War the Reichstag building fell into disuse as the parliament of the German Democratic Republic met in the Palace of the Republic in East Berlin and the parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany met in the Bundeshaus in Bonn.   read more…

The Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Centre in Berlin

11 March 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Berlin, Intelligent Buildings, Museums, Exhibitions, Opera Houses, Theaters, Libraries, Universities, Colleges, Academies Reading Time:  6 minutes

Leseterrassen © Herr Gleisenagel

Leseterrassen © Herr Gleisenagel

University Library of Humboldt University
The Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Centre will be jointly developed by the University Library and the Computer and Media Service as an open information and communication space on the midtown campus of Humboldt University in Berlin.   read more…

Portrait: Alexander von Humboldt, not only in South America still a super star

4 March 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Portrait Reading Time:  6 minutes

Alexander von Humboldt, 1806, painted by Friedrich Georg Weitsch

Alexander von Humboldt, 1806, painted by Friedrich Georg Weitsch

Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt (September 14, 1769 – May 6, 1859) was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt’s quantitative work on botanical geography was the foundation of the field of biogeography. Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt traveled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time in a manner generally considered to be a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. He was one of the first to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Later, his five-volume work, Kosmos (1845), attempted to unify the various branches of scientific knowledge. Humboldt supported and worked with other scientists, including Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac, Justus von Liebig, Louis Agassiz, Matthew Fontaine Maury, and most notably, Aimé Bonpland, with whom he conducted much of his scientific exploration.   read more…

My home, my station!

19 February 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Berlin, Building Automation, Green Buildings, Green Technologies, Intelligent Buildings, Environment Reading Time:  6 minutes

Energie-Plus-Haus in Berlin © Werner Sobek

Energie-Plus-Haus in Berlin © Werner Sobek

The Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development will continue the building and electrical mobility research from October 2011 on with the successor model of the energy-plus house, which will combine building and transport, stuffed with an awesome amount of green features.   read more…

Theme Week Berlin – Currywurst & Co.

14 November 2010 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Berlin, Design & Products Reading Time:  4 minutes

© umami

© umami

Berlin has a lot of culinary delights to offer. The traditional Berlin dishes are distinguished by the fact that they are more hardy and hearty to give hard-working workers the necessary calories back. It looks as if some Berliners eat in anticipation of hard work upfront. The little dishes for inbetween got a truly national and international boast.   read more…

Theme Week Berlin – Alexanderplatz and Gendarmenmarkt

13 November 2010 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, Berlin Reading Time:  12 minutes

© bilderbook.org

© bilderbook.org

Alexanderplatz

The Alex to Berliners, a cattle market in the Middle Ages, a military parade square and an exercise ground for nearby barracks until the mid 19th century – Alexanderplatz is the square named to honour Alexander I, Tsar of Russia, on his visit to Berlin in 1805. It was here that Alfred Döblin took the pulse of the cosmopolitan metropolis portrayed in his 1929 novel “Berlin Alexanderplatz” filmed by Fassbinder for a TV series as a portrait of the bustling city in the 1920s before the imminent Nazi takeover. Fast forward to more recent times, one million people congregated here, on 4 November 1989 to demonstrate against the GDR regime shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall. This was the largest anti-government demonstration in its history.   read more…

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