Berlin Looking South - It's Not All About Buildings

After a little long weekend break to discover the beautiful city of Bath and Salisbury’s magnificent and grant cathedral I am back in my studio.

Now it’s the Tiergarten’s turn, Berlin’s lush and green central park well placed between the city centres of former East and West Berlin.

Naturally a park doesn’t have as much little architectural detail as the adjacent city quarters but I don’t want to make it just a uniform green sea where a closed roof of trees just hides any structure and detail. Even though Tiergarten is quite a forest of e city park I want to take great care to bring out the landscaping, the mix of dense woodland, clearings and meadows popular with sunbathers, ponds and lakes, tree lined walk ways, winding paths, bridges, pavilions and monuments as well as the memorial for the soviet army.

A nice constrast to the organic shapes inside the park form the broad Avenue of the 17th of June (completely straight in reality but curved in my world ;-) ) and the massive roundabout of the “Grosser Stern” (Great Star) with the Victory Column in the middle. Beyond the Great Star the avenue continues westwards disappearing towards the horizon.

I take my artistic license and add another gentle bend to the right that will give me more space for the skyline of the City West, initially Berlin’s Westend, then the city centre of West Berlin around the iconic Memorial Church left as a ruin as a memory of the war.

I also love including quite a few of the embassy buildings in the area (even though not all as there are too many) as they can be nicely marked with their specific flag. (Maybe I haven't grown up yet ;-)

Some additions around the park like Bellevue Palace the official residence of Germany’s Federal President and some skyline at the horizon to finish it all off nicely and evoke the feeling of distance.