Berlin with Lee

09/06/2026

26/05/2026

Friedrichstraße 185, Berlin.
What looks restrained from the street completely changes once you cross the threshold. The courtyard unfolds like a hidden city inside the block — glass, stone, shadow, repetition, silence. Very Berlin in the way it carries history indirectly.
This is 1990s “critical reconstruction” architecture at its most interesting: rebuilding the traditional European street wall after the fractures of war and division, while still admitting modern corporate transparency through the atrium and interior passages.
The proportions are doing most of the work here: rigid facade rhythms outside, then compressed entrances opening into unexpected interior volume.
It’s less about spectacle and more about spatial sequencing — public street to semi-public court to protected interior. Architecture that reveals itself slowly.

22/05/2026

In the heart of Berlin, where history, philosophy, and music intersect, the Barenboim-Said Akademie is reimagining what a conservatory can be. Founded by conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim and inspired by the vision of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the academy brings together young musicians from across the Middle East and around the world to study music alongside the humanities.

Housed in the beautifully restored former Staatsoper scenery warehouse in Berlin, the academy stands as a reminder that art can create dialogue where politics often fails. Students don’t just practice technique — they study history, literature, philosophy, and listen deeply to one another.

In a city marked by division and reunification, the Barenboim-Said Akademie feels uniquely Berlin: intellectually ambitious, international, and hopeful.

18/05/2026

On 2 May 1945, during the final collapse of N**i Germany, German forces defending Berlin surrendered to the Red Army in a house on Schulenburgring in the Tempelhof district of Berlin.
The surrender marked the effective end of the Battle of Berlin after days of brutal street fighting, massive destruction, and enormous civilian suffering throughout the city.
At the house on Schulenburgring, General Helmuth Weidling — commander of Berlin’s defenses — surrendered to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov. Shortly afterward, orders were issued for German troops in Berlin to cease fighting.
A week later, on 8–9 May 1945, the formal and internationally recognized German Instrument of Surrender was signed in Karlshorst

15/05/2026

Here's two minutes inside the foyer of the most underrated institution on the museum island: The Bode Museum
✨ Home to stunning Byzantine art, medieval sculptures, Renaissance masterpieces, and one of the world’s largest coin collections, it’s a journey through centuries of European history. And don’t miss its museum café — easily one of the most picturesque in the city, with dreamy river views and grand historic interiors 🏛️☕🎨

12/05/2026

✈️ Every year on May 12th, I get invited to this commemoration ceremony in Berlin. I'll be honest with you — the ceremony itself can be a little dry. But I never miss it. Because the fact that this city still shows up, still marks this date, still plays four national anthems together at the same memorial. That means everything.

Seventy-seven years ago today, the Soviet Union blinked.

For nearly a year, West Berlin had been strangled — every road, every railway, every canal sealed shut. Two and a half million people, deep inside Soviet-controlled territory, cut off from food, fuel, and medicine. The goal was simple: starve the West out of Berlin.
It didn't work.
The Western Allies built a bridge out of thin air. Over 277,000 flights. A plane landing at Tempelhof every 45 seconds at the peak of the operation. Coal, flour, medicine — and candy, dropped by parachute to the children waiting below by a pilot named Gail Halvorsen, forever known here as the Rosinenbomber. The Candy Bomber.
On May 12, 1949, the blockade lifted. The roads opened. Berlin exhaled.
Watch the video — four national anthems, played together. American, British, French, German. Former enemies, standing side by side. That's not just history. That's Berlin.
🕊️

10/05/2026

Here are two minutes of an exhibit that runs about ten minutes in total at the Academy of Art in Berlin.

The video installation displays words reportedly discouraged, restricted, or removed from official use under the Trump administration — terms connected to climate change, diversity, gender, equity, and social justice.

The piece is less about individual politics and more about the power of language itself: who decides which words are acceptable in public institutions, what ideas become harder to discuss, and how language can shape public thought and memory.

Seeing the words projected this way makes censorship feel tangible — and raises questions about how democracies handle uncomfortable ideas.

03/05/2026

Paris square on a beautiful May Sunday morning

02/05/2026

It took 30 years, but I finally made it across the street from our house to the Funkturm in Charlottenburg. It did not disappoint.