Berlin+Chicago: A blog collaboration

This is the first time I share a post with another blog. I love Oolretaw's blog and wandering around Chicago with her. We share a mutual love for architecture and photos of it, and it seemed only natural to do a collaboration and a comparison of our two cities. I have never met Becca in person (or been to Chicago for that matter), but it's been so much fun discussing photos and cameras and cities. Much more of that! (Check her out on Instagram here as well) + Let me know what you think of this collaboration idea!

BERLIN: I love the old plattenbaus in Berlin. The arcitecture tells its own story, and the buildings are silent witnesses and results of the city's incredible history. This one in Heinrich-Heine-Straße is one of my favourites.

CHICAGO: Such a classic part of the heart of the city over our river. Marina city towers, old, and Donald Trump's tower, new. A very Miesian structure in the middle makes for a Chicago Sandwich.

BERLIN: Old meets new; a thing that happens a lot in a city that was almost demolished by war bombs. It makes it exciting to look at the buildings, and history is ever present.

CHICAGO: I love fire escapes, all hours of the day. Their shadows cast always make such sharp geometrical patterns.

BERLIN: It's a recent photo, but one of my favourite. The font is so beautiful, and the facade as well. The symmetry is cool.

CHICAGO: This picture could be timeless of Chicago, or many other cities in the world. This view is from outside my boyfriend's apartment, and the sun hits it in just the right angle every day. Brick, wood trim windows, and the power line just adds so much more character.

BERLIN: I just moved away from this street in Kreuzberg. It had a lot of beautiful old 'altbaus' like this one. Berlin buildings are so majestic with their entrances and subtle details. I miss walking down that street every day.

CHICAGO: A view of the street which is underdeveloped right now by my apartment screams for potential. For now it's covered in graffiti and boarded up doors. I kind of like it like that, for now.

BERLIN: Karl-Marx-Allee is one of my favourite streets in Berlin. It was built as the pride and symbol of GDR's 'greatness', and it feels like being in a different country when walking there. It's vast and empty, and the buildings feel like giants watching over you. A hint to the GDR's way of keeping an eye on its inhabitants, perhaps.

CHICAGO: The loop is always a vista of buildings folded on top of each other, layers upon layers of windows and angles and colors and shapes. The eye never bores.

BERLIN: Berlin doesn't really have a skyline of skyscrapers, but it's still pretty from above in its own, flat way. The TV-tower in the middle can always lead you home if you're lost, and I love that building as the city's high eye.

CHICAGO: Water towers in Chicago make Chicago. It's a shame they're all being taken down. Such a nice silhouette in a sunset. We must document them all as a staple in our history. I smell a new photo series.

BERLIN: In the old GDR part of the city, the yellow tram runs in carefully laid tracks. I love the tram, but I don't love getting my bicycle stuck in the tracks...

CHICAGO: The sun shone beautifully that morning. I love peeking downtown to our city on a crisp fall morning as such, or any morning. Our skyline is so handsome.

Thanks, Oolretaw!