More than meets the eye

The pock marks you see on this building are a remnant of WWII and the heavy fighting that went on in Berlin. Most of the area has gentrified and new facades have been installed. This particular building has chosen to remember what happened here.

Meaning of this graffiti on the end of the building appears on the side of a building called Tacheles. It's ambiguous- is it the past, present, or future? Kind of sums up some of the feelings one has in Berlin. Tacheles is a Yiddish word meaning to speak directly and honestly. Gets a little muddy these days. This building is in the former Jewish quarter which was part of East Berlin until the wall came down. This graffiti has been there since 1989.

That graffiti is on the end of this building which was occupied by squatters and artists after the wall came down. It was built in 1909 as a shopping center, went bankrupt and reopened as a department store, then the electric company which broadcast the first live worlds sports event, Berlin Olympics in 1936, eventually the central office of the Nazi SS. It is boarded up now but scaffolded so looks like it's going to get a remake in the next few years.

Painted stucco sculpture from the 12th or 13th century from Persia. Only the body is original. About 8" tall.

Only the body is original, head and legs added to make it more salable. Was determined when x-rayed. This fits into some of the conversations we've been having about value of a work of art.

A cupola from the Alhambra in Granada Spain created in the 14th century, brought to Berlin by Arthur von Gwinner. He purchased part of the Alhambra property in 1885 and gave most of the property to the city of Granada but asked for the cupola which he had dismantled and then reconstructed in his living room in Berlin. It eventually made its way to the Pergamon Museum where it can be seen today.

An engraving of the inside of the Neues Synagogue (the Oranienstrasse Synagogue) from 1895. You can see how the Spanish style, especially the Islamic art of the Alhambra influenced the decoration of this interior.