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The Directory › Europe › Germany › Berlin
Plate II · vii · a · The City

Berlin

One entry, and it is a room you have to ask to enter. That is the whole character of the city, really.

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An empty paved plaza in the Kulturforum, bare trees and flat winter light
Plate II · vii · a · The Kulturforum

Berlin does not put its best things on the wall. It puts them in a box, in a drawer, in a room upstairs, and waits to be asked.

A day, properly arranged
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Not a Monday. And not without the letter.

The entries

One entry, visited, and it carries the page on its own.
A study table in a print room, portfolio boxes and one drawing laid flat under cool daylight
Interior · the study table, one sheet at a time

A gallery decides what you look at. A study table lets you decide, and then quietly proves how little you had thought to ask for.

BY APPOINTMENT, MID-MORNING
Notes for Berlin

Write ahead. I cannot say it more plainly than the entry does. The request is the visit: name what you want to see, say why, and give them a fortnight. Turning up hopeful gets you a very polite German sentence and a closed door.

Ask for less than you want. Six sheets looked at properly will beat thirty flicked through, and the staff will offer you the seventh themselves once they see you are actually reading.

Keep the afternoon empty. I have never once left a study room on schedule, and the plaza outside is a perfectly good place to sit and rewrite the list you came in with.

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