Tobias Rechsteiner is a type and graphic designer travelling between Berlin and Basel. He co-founded prolog.work a digital design studio in Basel, designs typefaces for Grilli Type and is currently doing an Innovation & Management MBA in Berlin.
Berlin has plenty of magic cafés in every corner. This is one of them. It's quiet and it has a mixture of lights and furniture that really catches me. Cakes and coffees are also very tasty.
My favourite bar of the many around kreuzkölln is Bellman. After its sudden closure and reopening it underwent some changes and is boycotted by some of its former patronage, but for the less principled like myself it’s still a good place to go and they do pull the best Jever in Berlin.
The central ‘Mitte’ area of Berlin is packed tight with galleries and museums, which means you can cram a lot into a short amount of time, if that’s what you want.
The best of the lot is the Me Collectors Room, which shows off large chunks of the Thomas Olbricht collection alongside other contemporary private artworks. The permanent ‘Wunderkammer’ display offers over 200 pieces from the Renaissance and the Baroque periods, with a solid focus on the strange and macabre. There’s even a Mark Ryden original that fits in nicely.
Peres Projects mostly showcases young, emerging artists and is at the forefront of fusing art with fashion, celebrity and the love of a good party, which seems to work very well in Berlin. Having recently moved into an ex-Soviet building on Karl Marx Allee, the giant new space contrasts brilliantly with the commanding facade.