Herzschlag, Berlin´s underground

My first contact with Berlin´s underground took place by chance and just a few days after arriving for the first time to the city. I am not speaking about the U-Bahn transport network, neither about the pretty active experimental music scene going on there (visit echzeitmusik to be up to date), but about the subterranean architecture which spans a great portion of the city.

However, in those days I was even not aware of the existence of that unnoticed and obscure underground network underneath Berlin, it was a few months afterwards which I stumbled upon the story watching a documentary which featured the Berliner-Unterwelten, a society devoted to the exploration and documentation of Berlin´s subterranean architecture (they even have a series of guided tours, a friend attended one recently and he was quite enthusiastic about it).

Herzschlag is the german word for heartbeat, and it was the name of this installation created by some unidentified artists. I didn´t see any flyer, just red stencils on some walls in the surroundings, referencing simply the word. However, we knew about it through a friend, who just invited us to go somewhere, to an special exhibition only open on Saturdays afternoon. She was quite mysterious and didn´t want to reveal more details in order not to spoil the visit. We were taken to the hidden location, descended twenty metres below ground level and when our eyes got used to the darkness of the space, we started to explore the place. An idea of what we found can be made seeing some photos and listening to this binaural soundwalk. The experience was remarkable, both because of the intriguing curiosity about what was going on there and the location itself, which was superb. I hope to explore other locations of Berlin´s underground architecture someday, and who knows, maybe even to have the opportunity of making some nice recordings of those subterranean spaces.

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Location: Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin
Date/Time: 21-07-2007 – 19:30h
Mic/Recorder: Soundman OKM II / Hi-MD Sony MZ-RH1 (better on headphones)