Vienna and Berlin: A Study in Contrasts
Okay, so Vienna certainly has new zones and Berlin certainly has old buildings, but what you really notice from these photos is the contrast between the stately classicalness of Vienna and the modern/daringness of much of Berlin's architecture.
For example, the center of Vienna features statues of Marie Therese...
...Mozart...
...and Johann Strauss. 
One of the more "modern" buildings is the Vienna Secession, designed by the artists breaking away from the Vienna School of Fine Arts at the turn of the 20th century. One of the most famous secession artists was Gustav Klimt.
The Karlskirche (based on Trajan's Columns in Rome) and the Christmas Market in front:
A small and poorly explained monument to the victims of the Holocaust in central Vienna. The first photo is of a statue designed to represent a victim scrubbing the floor:
And this one shows stones actually taken from a concentration camp in Austria:
Inside the Vienna Staatsopera:
The state treasury had both secular and religious treasures. These are some of the secular treasures - in this case keys that belonged to the monarch's stewards and chaplains:
And the largest cut emerald ever known:
Including in the religious treasures is this awesome feather art from Mexico, which uses feathers from birds to make pictures of religious figures which then shine in different lights. Ooo shiny.
They also have one of the nails that nailed Jesus to the cross. (I make no comment, I just repeat what they tell me.)
Inside the Stephensdom:
And outside:
Outside the Kuntshauswien:
The mission statement of the Kuntshauswien (worth reading - and if you click on the picture you should get a more readable version):
Now, in Berlin, a seemingly normal street, except for the marker of where the wall used to stand:
Along Unter der Linden, the state library:
The main building of the Humbolt University:
And the Monument to the Victims of War and Tyranny:
The Museum Island with the Christmas Market/carnival and the Berliner Dome in the background:
The Karl Friedrich Schinkel Museum, which is not a museum to Schinkel (a German architect who made a huge impact on Berlin) at all but rather a museum of sculpture inside a building built by Schinkel:
Yet another Christmas Market, this one with a skating rink right nearby:
The skating rink had a warming pavilion with penguin decor:
On a more serious note, the same plaza that houses the skating rink was the site where Hitler and related parties burned books. The monument pictured below is below the plaza and shows empty bookcases, an excellent way to mark the events that once took place there.
Outside the Berlin Philharmonic...
... and inside.
The super cool international clock, which rotates and tells you the hour in major cities all around the world:
I forget names of churches, but this one is the oldest in Berlin with the communications tower obscured by mist in the background:
Inside they were reconstructing a mosaic with the help of visitors:
You could pay to buy some mosaic tiles and then fill them in on the plastic sheet, which was labeled like a color by number drawing, only it's a religious mosaic in the oldest church in Berlin:
And this is the church from which the Reformation was proclaimed in Berlin:
A statue to Marx and Engels in what used to be East Berlin:
A statue to George slaying the dragon:
The old state palace for the East German leaders, now an asbestos hazard and closed:
The Old Museum, housing the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman collections. It has a neon sign outside which says, "All Art Has Been Contemporary."
The carnival at night seen from the steps of the Old Museum:
Unter der Linden lit at night:
The super cool and super tasty Indian restaurant:
Chris shows his inability to handle candles:
Chris, Erica, and Robert:
Erica and me:
The Holocaust Memorial is the first state funded Holocaust Memorial in the world. I'm not entirely sure I understand the symbolism, other than that it's supposed to be disconserting and confusing.
Mount Fuji. I mean, the Sony Center:
A memorial to the Soviet liberators. The tanks are supposedly the first ones to have entered the city when the Soviets took Berlin at the end of World War II:
Forgetting the name of this church, but it's an iconic image in Berlin. Bombed out during the war, a decision was made not to restore it to remember the destruction wrought upon Berlin.
Inside the Memorial to the Resistance, which works very well with colors and lights and pictures to convey their point:
Erica, Beth, and I inside the treehouse:
A close up of the memorial to those Germans who fought in the Spanish Civil War (as you can guess it's in what used to be East Berlin)...
...and around the corner a monument to the revolution of 1848:
The Fern something or other communications tower (can you tell that I've been too many places where I don't understand the language and have given up on learning the names?):
At the East Side Gallery, Beth and me:
Perhaps the most famous grafitti on the wall, it's a cartoon version of the famous kiss between the leaders on both sides after the wall came down:
And this one is a reproduction of the super famous photo of the American soldier leaping over the barbed wire border:
Chris, Christine, and Beth take down the wall, like the children depicted here:
I saw this one and thought of Katherine, for obvious reasons:
And finally, my personal favorite of the super artsy drawings:
Beth rides the Ferris Wheel:
The Berliner Dom from above...
...the Old Gallery from above with the others museums on Museum Island behind...
...and Unter der Linden extending toward the Brandenburg Gate:
For example, the center of Vienna features statues of Marie Therese...
...Mozart...
...and Johann Strauss. 
One of the more "modern" buildings is the Vienna Secession, designed by the artists breaking away from the Vienna School of Fine Arts at the turn of the 20th century. One of the most famous secession artists was Gustav Klimt.
The Karlskirche (based on Trajan's Columns in Rome) and the Christmas Market in front:
A small and poorly explained monument to the victims of the Holocaust in central Vienna. The first photo is of a statue designed to represent a victim scrubbing the floor:
And this one shows stones actually taken from a concentration camp in Austria:
Inside the Vienna Staatsopera:
The state treasury had both secular and religious treasures. These are some of the secular treasures - in this case keys that belonged to the monarch's stewards and chaplains:
And the largest cut emerald ever known:
Including in the religious treasures is this awesome feather art from Mexico, which uses feathers from birds to make pictures of religious figures which then shine in different lights. Ooo shiny.
They also have one of the nails that nailed Jesus to the cross. (I make no comment, I just repeat what they tell me.)
Inside the Stephensdom:
And outside:
Outside the Kuntshauswien:
The mission statement of the Kuntshauswien (worth reading - and if you click on the picture you should get a more readable version):
Now, in Berlin, a seemingly normal street, except for the marker of where the wall used to stand:
Along Unter der Linden, the state library:
The main building of the Humbolt University:
And the Monument to the Victims of War and Tyranny:
The Museum Island with the Christmas Market/carnival and the Berliner Dome in the background:
The Karl Friedrich Schinkel Museum, which is not a museum to Schinkel (a German architect who made a huge impact on Berlin) at all but rather a museum of sculpture inside a building built by Schinkel:
Yet another Christmas Market, this one with a skating rink right nearby:
The skating rink had a warming pavilion with penguin decor:
On a more serious note, the same plaza that houses the skating rink was the site where Hitler and related parties burned books. The monument pictured below is below the plaza and shows empty bookcases, an excellent way to mark the events that once took place there.
Outside the Berlin Philharmonic...
... and inside.
The super cool international clock, which rotates and tells you the hour in major cities all around the world:
I forget names of churches, but this one is the oldest in Berlin with the communications tower obscured by mist in the background:
Inside they were reconstructing a mosaic with the help of visitors:
You could pay to buy some mosaic tiles and then fill them in on the plastic sheet, which was labeled like a color by number drawing, only it's a religious mosaic in the oldest church in Berlin:
And this is the church from which the Reformation was proclaimed in Berlin:
A statue to Marx and Engels in what used to be East Berlin:
A statue to George slaying the dragon:
The old state palace for the East German leaders, now an asbestos hazard and closed:
The Old Museum, housing the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman collections. It has a neon sign outside which says, "All Art Has Been Contemporary."
The carnival at night seen from the steps of the Old Museum:
Unter der Linden lit at night:
The super cool and super tasty Indian restaurant:
Chris shows his inability to handle candles:
Chris, Erica, and Robert:
Erica and me:
The Holocaust Memorial is the first state funded Holocaust Memorial in the world. I'm not entirely sure I understand the symbolism, other than that it's supposed to be disconserting and confusing.
Mount Fuji. I mean, the Sony Center:
A memorial to the Soviet liberators. The tanks are supposedly the first ones to have entered the city when the Soviets took Berlin at the end of World War II:
Forgetting the name of this church, but it's an iconic image in Berlin. Bombed out during the war, a decision was made not to restore it to remember the destruction wrought upon Berlin.
Inside the Memorial to the Resistance, which works very well with colors and lights and pictures to convey their point:
Erica, Beth, and I inside the treehouse:
A close up of the memorial to those Germans who fought in the Spanish Civil War (as you can guess it's in what used to be East Berlin)...
...and around the corner a monument to the revolution of 1848:
The Fern something or other communications tower (can you tell that I've been too many places where I don't understand the language and have given up on learning the names?):
At the East Side Gallery, Beth and me:
Perhaps the most famous grafitti on the wall, it's a cartoon version of the famous kiss between the leaders on both sides after the wall came down:
And this one is a reproduction of the super famous photo of the American soldier leaping over the barbed wire border:
Chris, Christine, and Beth take down the wall, like the children depicted here:
I saw this one and thought of Katherine, for obvious reasons:
And finally, my personal favorite of the super artsy drawings:
Beth rides the Ferris Wheel:
The Berliner Dom from above...
...the Old Gallery from above with the others museums on Museum Island behind...
...and Unter der Linden extending toward the Brandenburg Gate:
posted by Lynn at 12:18 PM
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