Avisen Danmark has published a guide to Berlin’s art scene, mapping a one-day route through a former crematorium, a wartime bunker, a 1960s concrete church and a disused brewery.
The feature, published on August 27, appeared in Avisen Danmark. It moves through the Berlin districts of Wedding, Mitte and Kreuzberg, ending in the south of the city. Photographs accompanying the piece are credited to Casper Hindse and Ritzau Scanpix.
The tour begins at Silent Green Kulturquartier in Wedding, north of the city center. According to the article, the building was erected in 1911 as Berlin’s first municipal crematorium and now houses galleries, studios and a cafe. The paper describes high-ceilinged halls, symmetrical architecture and a quieter atmosphere inside the gates.
A few U-Bahn stops south, in Mitte, the Boros Collection occupies a Second World War bunker. As reported by Avisen Danmark, the structure previously served as a prison and a techno club before it was converted into a private museum. Visits are by advance booking and take place on guided tours, and the collection is primarily international in focus.
Berlin’s art market in numbers
The article cites Creative City Berlin and the German newspaper Die Welt for figures on the city’s art sector. Those sources put the number of galleries in Berlin at more than 450, with up to 600 exhibition venues in total. Close to 10,000 professional artists live and work in the city.
The same figures state that more than 3,400 locally based companies are active in the art market. The sector has an annual turnover of around 700 million euros, and more than 7,000 jobs are tied to the art industry. Berlin also accounts for 17 percent of all galleries in Germany.
Per the article, low living costs and creative freedom continue to draw artists from around the world to the German capital. Mitte and Kreuzberg are described as dense with galleries and street art.
In Kreuzberg, the route passes König Galerie, housed in the deconsecrated St. Agnes church. The concrete building dates from the mid-1960s, and the paper highlights its brutalist architecture alongside large-scale installations, sculptures and paintings.
A short walk further into Kreuzberg lies Künstlerhaus Bethanien, built in the mid-19th century as a hospital. According to the article, it later became a gathering point for alternative art and culture circles in the district. It is known for international residency programs in which artists open their working processes to the public.
The final stop is the former Berliner Kindl brewery in southern Berlin, built in the late 1920s. Its open halls and boiler hall remain intact and now frame changing art installations, the paper reports.
