Threshold observations: Berlin neighbourhood shifts through a pandemic
The transition into spring in gloomy winter cities like Berlin has always expanded cafes and bars beyond the limits of their facades. Sidewalk widths are minimised and lined with outdoor tables and stools. The wave of Coronavirus overlapped this transition period in Berlin, together with the rest of Germany. This essay briefly introduces transformations of neighbourhood thresholds, noting observations at the street and sidewalk level — in particular, street-level small businesses along active and passive areas of a district.
Germany has been largely recognised and commended for having ample capacity for treatment and recovery amidst its significance in case numbers. The country has also been well noted for having responded calmly, with comparably lenient policies considering the spike of cases; and swiftly, with online-accessible financial aid applications and immediate grant transferral. A condensed outline of the crucial first 10 weeks of implemented government regulations in Berlin following the COVID-19 outbreak, included three long weekends:
- week 1 — March 13 — closing of clubs
- week 2 — March 17 — closing of schools
- week 2 — March 18 — closing of dine-in establishments (limited operating hours from 6am-6pm for take-out options)
- week 3 — March 27 — ‘Corona Zuschuss’
- week 5 — April 10–13 — Easter long weekend
- week 7 — April 22 — shops smaller than 800 sqm. allowed to reopen
- week 8 — April 30 — playgrounds reopen
- week 8 — May 1 — Labour day long weekend
- week 9 — May 8 — Liberation day long weekend
- week 9 — May 9 — reduced contact ban, all retail shops can reopen
- week 10 — May 15 — restaurants allowed to reopen and serve until 10pm
Mid-March, after clubs had to shut down, Berlin night and weekend life started to diffuse together with tourism dotting the city. Restaurants, cafes, and bars followed suit, some able to continue a fraction of their capacity through take-out and deliveries, others forced to completely close, all needing to reassess their business schemes (worth reading further into is a discussion on the future of the Berlin food scene by Per Meurling of Berlin Food Stories).
With regulations mostly focused on more interior practices and visible contact, life outdoors (although evidently reduced) seems more like an adjustment rather than a harsh change with alien modifications of the everyday. It has been interesting to recognise minimal interventions around a familiar neighbourhood. Particularly to notice activations at the edges of buildings, by windows, at doorways.
Some initial field notes on a handful of take-away spots throughout Körnerpark:
- Queen of Muffins cafe (1) and Nini e Pettirosso pizzeria (2)
Both Queen of Muffins and Nini are at heavy foot traffic points. The former is along the main street Hermanstrasse, right next to a Centland and a busy Turkish market; the latter is adjacent to playgrounds directly at the corner of the Körnerpark. With similar systems of ordering and take-out, both cafe and pizzeria have a one-customer only policy at the counter.
- Bar Amalia (3) and Flaschenzug Bar (4)
Bar Amalia is adjacent to Nini, at a more calm side of the street. Flaschenzug is further down the street. Both bars are at the corners of their respective intersections. Flaschenzug has converted their corner door entrance into a take-away window, offering spritz and cocktails to-go. Bar Amalia has turned one window side into an ice cream window, adding a step ladder for children to peak in.
- Leuchtstoff cafe (5) and Home cafe (6)
Leuchtstoff and Home are at parallel side streets whose facades orient towards the sun on a clear day. Instead of benches and stools taking over half of the sidewalk, both cafes now serve take-away coffee from their respective entrance doorways. Leuchtstoff is a medium traffic one-way street leading into the busy Hermannstrasse main street and train hub. Home, on the other hand, is on a more quiet cobblestoned street. Both main windows are lined up with the day’s pastries.
Revisiting Marc Auge’s Non-Places, these altered conditions of windows and doorways somehow further blur the already fine contrast between the definitions of place and non-place. The temporal appropriation of these pass-thru spaces present visual cues more obvious to the usual passerby, suggesting potential relevance in the further study of these facades. Appropriation and value of space, how will interior spaces adjust? Proximity, how will shared spaces alter in correspondence? Even through time and age, as normality will not parallel pre-Corona practice, how can a sense of familiarity be managed?
This initial assemblage of thresholds and field notes present a starting point for further analysis and elaboration into other case studies. Elementary fragments of thoughts to lead into potential conversations about the near-future possibilities of neighbourhoods post-pandemic, starting at the edges.
