The Cold War left some interesting buildings, anyway.
While in Berlin I took a recommendation from a friend and did a little bit of urban exploration. I went here and clambered about for an afternoon.

That large tower with the radar bubble on top was the really amazing part. Up there where the satellite dishes once sat is now empty, but with the most astonishing acoustics I have ever encountered. This may give you an idea of what it's like- I stood in the center and clapped my hands, and it sounded like gunfire in a canyon. Then I went to the wall of it and tapped on it, which sounded even weirder still.

I really wonder what it was like in there at the height of the Cold War. Now it's full of broken glass and graffiti and weird noises as the wind howls through it.

Oh, and I really want one day to do this.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 4 Jun 2012, 20:34, 8 replies)

The wall itself was an incredible construction project
In that the bulk of the structure was built in a single month - August 1961. My father was stationed in Berlin at the time and to his dismay was allocated duty on his 21st birthday - August 27th 1961 - when the construction was just about finished.

My 21st birthday was November 9th 1989. The day the wall came down.
( The Disappointed Caravanner of the year, Mon 4 Jun 2012, 21:13, closed)

I saw a fair amount of the wall while I was there, of course. Sad, creepy and a lot smaller than I ever would have guessed.

But nowhere near as creepy as Teufelsberg. I have every intention of going back there as soon as I can manage it.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 4 Jun 2012, 21:17, closed)

Make it quick then
The vandals and squatters are destroying it
( Richard Shitheels, Tue 5 Jun 2012, 7:31, closed)

I'm hoping it will be within the next year.

My friend has a piece of recording software that allows him to catch the acoustic properties of a given space- a theater, for example- and use that to put reverb into recordings. If he can get his stuff up there to capture that space, he will have the ability to duplicate the sounds of that radar bubble electronically.

But getting in there was in itself extremely trippy.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 5 Jun 2012, 15:52, closed)

I think you'll be shocked and saddened at how it looks now :(
Feel free to drop me a line if you come over - would be happy to join you up there
( Richard Shitheels, Tue 5 Jun 2012, 19:33, closed)

Freaky. The hand claps sounded like gunshot
The more I read about East Berlin, the more I want to prevent such a thing from ever happening again.
( BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Mon 4 Jun 2012, 22:02, closed)

This is magnificent.
Teufelsberg means 'Devil's Mountain' as well. Spook.

I've got a chunk of Die Mauer, the Berlin Wall. I knocked it off myself with another, bigger chunk of the Wall in 1990. One man's vandal is another man's English twat with a chunk of rock-hard concrete.
(judgetheobscure used to sweep in butchers' shops., Mon 4 Jun 2012, 23:16, closed)

Especially spooky when you realise the entire "mountain" is man-made out of 2nd world war rubble

( Richard Shitheels, Tue 5 Jun 2012, 7:32, closed)