Sud Gelande and "Urbexing"

There is a group here called "Grun Berlin" (Green Berlin) that is active in transitioning former industrial areas into public parklands. Two of their marquee projects are Tempelhof airfield and Gleisdreieck.

Tempelhof is famous as one of the main airfields used during the 1948-49 Berlin Airlift. It was decommissioned in 2010 and Grun Berlin assisted the transition from active international airport to viable parkland. The huge park (with all runways still intact) sits in between Schoneberg and Nuekolln. As soon as our shipment with the kids' bikes arrives (it is over a month late WTF) we will be spending lots of time there.

Gleisdreieck is an ex-railyard that funnelled all the traffic into the city from the South, ending up at Anhalter Hauptbahnhof, Germany's massive and beautiful train station. WWII bombing largely destroyed Anhalter and later the development of other stations and the Berlin Wall situation prevented the need to rebuild it. As a result, much of the rail infrastructure immediately to the South of the old station was unnecessary and sat unused as an industrial wasteland for a good 50 years.

What's left of the main entrance to Anhalter Station.

When the Wall fell and money started pouring into a re-unified Berlin the opportunity came to do something with the land, so Grun Berlin stepped in to rehab this landscape into another huge public park. It is on my bike commute home and one of the first places I got to know and explore: they left tons of rail lines, old buildings and bridges to explore. There is something about standing on a rail siding that once hummed with the activity of supplying an entire city: the trundling freight cars, engines, whistles, all the action going on at all hours. And now it is a quiet forest, the tracks still there but gradually getting obscured amidst the birch forest growing up between the rails.

One of the bridges over Yorckstrasse in Gleisdreieck.

This weekend we explored another of Grun Berlin's works, the SudGelande ("Southern Terrain Area") railroad marshalling yards to the South of SudKreuz. SudGelande is basically the same story as Gleisdreieck, except a couple kilometers to the South. Here we have a couple massive train sheds and other former railway buildings renovated for public art space. Concrete abutments supporting former rail bridges extend nearly a kilometer through the forest, all designated for spray-paint artists.

A raised walkway takes visitors through the first generation woods and past a number of industrial sculptures. Rounding out the place is a 60 meter water tower, a steam engine and tender rescued from the forest, and tons of tracks, switches and iron electric towers poetically rusting away. As if it wasn't obvious, the central theme of this park is how art and nature intersect.

The Roundtable pit. Still works.

 

One of the buildings that was not restored was a 3 storey signal house. It is fenced off but you can sneak in fairly easily and poke your nose in the windows of the crumbling building to gaze at old stairwells, rusted heaters and graffiti. When things are left "as is" the concept of history seems much fresher.

This concept of Urban Exploring has been gradually gaining momentum in the back of my head and here it is in its most basic form: communing with the past in slightly off-limit areas. The historical development of Berlin with the war, the wall and the legacy of the GDR in the surrounding areas has created a number of locations for "Urbexers." From old trenchlines in forests to dilapidated GDR factory installations, a vibrant community of people are constantly running around Berlin sneaking into places and exploring this lost history.

While so much of Berlin is being patched up and renovated with the money pouring in here, there are still plenty of historical oddities that result in huge industrial areas sitting around waiting for the future. Many are closed off to prevent vandalism, fires, or people otherwise hurting themselves while traipsing around unsecured areas. Others are quite easy to explore.

On the periphery of nearly everything you do here is a little tidbit of exploring and history to enjoy, which is what makes this such a fascinating place.

Train tracks removed, tunnel remains. Spray painters followed.