July 7: Arrival & a first adventure

Photo: Arlette in our new digs.

We spent the first few days getting some of the German bureaucracy out of the way, and finding our way around the neighborhood. Janet of course did the hard part of the bureaucracy, standing, or rather sitting in line on Wednesday (July 7) as Arlette, Nicholas, and I scouted out Nicholas' school and then took a quick and rainy trip to Kurfürstendam, where we saw the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche (Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church).

The complex is now a series of contradictions. The church was built late in the 19th century, and inside sports mosaics glorifying Prussian militarism. It was gravely damaged during the Second World War and left in its ruined state as a reminder of what war can do. The mosaics inside show the Kaiser being crowned and what-not, combined with Christian imagery idealizing suffering, make for a rather unsettling show. Added to the church in 1959-61 were a chapel and tower in polygonal concrete, which Arlette at first sight declared ugly, with some good reason. But while the concrete exterior of the additions is rather oppressive, and the concrete tower positively distracting (taking away from the impression made by the shattered spires of the church), the interior of the new chapel was filled with a peaceful blue light through the very many blue stained-glass windows. Both structures, then, not only contrast with each other but are in some sense internally inconsistent, though it is the exterior of the old church and the interior of the new one that seem to better serve a religious function. And there is still one more sort of contradiction, that between the profusion of stalls hawking food and souvenirs and the memorials they butt right up against. The tower houses nothing in the way of a memorial (at least currently), only a sort of craft-shop. So commercialization has taken over from imperialism as the opponent to more spiritual values. The whole complex, it seems to me, would be much more moving were the church simply left in ruins, without the new additions—or the stands. But then I've yet to develop much of a taste for modern architecture. Speaking of commercialization, we stumbled through a floor or so of the Europa center on our way back to stay out of the rain. The rain meant I didn't even bother to bring my camera, so you'll have to surf to find pictures.