On the City Pattern Project: May 21 (Special Berlin Edition)
21May08
In which The Gay Recluse becomes obsessed with orange tiles.
We recently spent some time in Berlin at the conference center, much of which was done in orange tiles.
Yes it was garish but there was something appealing about it. Maybe it’s just because it seems like nothing you ever see on this side of the Atlantic, and like the song used to go: we’re so bored with the U.S.A.
All we could think about was how excited the orange-tile company must have been when they landed the contract however many years ago.
This was an underground passage that you can take if you don’t want to cross the street aboveground at a busy intersection: obviously the orange-tile company had a few very good years.
Filed under: Architecture, Capitalism, City Pattern Project, Communism, Infrastructure, Subway, The Gay Recluse | 3 Comments
Tags: Berlin, ICC, Orange Tiles, The Clash
The Gay Recluse 
Greetings…anyone can see from those subterranean tiles that the Gay Recluse trip to Berlin was a fruitful one. Did you happen upon any of the handsome wandering sausage-sellers, like a New York hot-dog cart with legs instead of wheels? About those tiles: it’s impossible to be sure, but that deep-orange glaze probably results from uranium oxide in the glaze, which would make those walls geiger-counter radioactive. Population control?
All best, Jeff
Thanks, Jeff. It’s definitely true that Berlin is pleasantly underpopulated in comparison to New York and London and other metropolitan giants. There are many trees and you can almost always hear the birds singing.
awesome orange tiles! i love! and the vertical orientation must have been quite design-forward at the time.