Urbane Exploration 1 by Young Cain
August 2nd, 2009 3:14 PMThis castle isn't still in use for its original purpose, but serves instead as a place of inspiration for artists with blocks,
I learned that artists and musicians live there on retreat. These artists rent out areas in the castle and work on reconstruction of the history through their art. This is, of course, helping to bring in the tourist crowd that comes to the city: the government AND artists win. Not too bad.
No one can take photographs of the gallery tho' and a guard threw us out because we didn't have tickets. :'[... however, we did run into a medieval instrument jam session. Supposedly an artist still crafts some instruments as well as making violins and other modern instruments.
So since this is a historic site, I guess I should include some information about it:
It was built sometime in the 14th century, it's not really specified.
The tower is called "Juliusturm" after Julius von Braunschweig-Wolffenbüttel, who served as a keep, to the last place of refuge in the fortress; the battlements were added by Schinkel. The castle served as a dungeon for prisoners, as well as a lookout because it is located on the intersection of the Havel and Spree rivers, so there's a moat around the castle to keep people in, or keep people out. Anyone coming in or going out of Berlin via the water would be spotted by the watchers at the Citadel.
It was fortified sometime in the 1500's by the Elector, who wanted to look after his estate and Berlin. The plans were made by Francesco Chiaramella de Gandino, and the first construction supervisor was Christoph Römer before Gandino took over. The building was completed in 1594 under Count Rochus zu Lynar.
The central structure of the citadel is a square pattern, with four pointed bastions known as "König", "Kronprinz", "Brandenburg" and "Königin" at the corners (clockwise from the entrance).
Also, for anyone who's ever watched "I was 19", which is a German film made in 1968, it was never filmed in the Citadel, because it was made in East Berlin while the Citadel is part of West Berlin: the Berlin Wall forced the directors to produce a partial copy in order to shoot a scene. :]
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We took the Berlin subway to the spandau Citadel. It costs 4 euro ($6) to ride anywhere for 24 hours.
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A sculpture from one of the live-in artists, similar to those in the forbidden gallery.
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I'm really inspired by the architecture in this building, it may be interesting to include it in a modern world as a part of a character's everyday life, as the artists live here and experience it as their everyday life... yum... writing insporation...
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This is sort of a storage unit for sculptures, smithing, etc. I actually learned that that's a family name. O___O
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This is particularly gruesome, and was probably inspired by the more violent side of this castle's history.
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we walked in on their jam session. It was amazingly sweet music, but I didn't understand the language...
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I think I'm gonna make it a theme to graft my meal after the task. This was us, grouped together for dinner.
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some ridiculously artistic German dessert! Dankeshin für gerade, fröhlich aufgabe! (My attempt at: Thanks for watching, Happy Tasking!)














Dear friend, I give you my last 3 points, and I think that we need to make you a pinkelhaube for usage as taskin' gear.