Europa! Europa!

Europa! Europa!

Fall!

Time to dig out my long forgotten layers for a series of adventures across Europe.

12 hours in London
The adventures kicked off with a day trip to London. After landing at 9am we toured Leicester Square, the site of the project we were in town to interview for...the highly coveted W London. W is a brand we know well that has yet to make its London debut - suffice it to say we were very, very hungry for this project.

Leicester Square has an intriguing history of science and entertainment but these days it's something of a mini Times Square meets Chinatown. Not the poshest destination necessarily. It'll be very interesting to see what happens to the area once the hotel opens. Jestico+Wiles have come up with a clean, glass-veiled facade treatment that can go in one of two directions - either it will succumb to the chintzy glitz of the area or it will raise the bar with its colorful changing facade. Only time will tell.

I can tell you now that we lost the project to Concrete, of recent CitizenM fame, not to mention Supperclub, Envy, and a whole host of hot Amsterdam restaurants which I found myself frequenting the following weekend (unbeknownst to me that they were our competitors!) A worthy opponent and a totally different animal, I take my hats off to them for a hardy competition well fought.

Three Days in Berlin
Having never traveled in Germany, I was really excited to start my experiences off in Berlin. With at least six of my friends from New York having recently relocated there, I figured it had to be a pretty fantastic introduction to Germany.

My first shock was the scale. I found myself reminded of Chicago in many ways. The city itself is very spread out, with 'dead' areas between neighborhoods, and entirely lacking in the characteristic European density. There were beautiful parks throughout much of the city boasting all the fall colors one would expect in a forest, not in an urban city of this size, and at the same time hundreds of old warehouses and brick structures one can only surmise were once factories, now repurposed and happily coexisting with their natural surroundings.

It goes without saying that Berlin is an amazingly unique place in that it has been almost entirely rebuilt after the war. What struck me the most is how proudly and gracefully it carries its juxtapositions - the prime example being the combination of older, classically detailed buildings with striking modern architecture, which lends Berlin a lot of its charm and character.

I had five hours to explore, so I hit the streets immediately. I wandered through the Sony Center then by Hans Scharoun's Philharmonic...both of which were a stone's throw from my hotel. I then headed up the street to Eisenmann's Jewish memorial. Pictures truly do not do it justice. It's a contemplative and haunting installation that encourages exploration and interaction. A full city block in either direction, it commands a lot of attention and dauntingly lives up to its promise to memorialize an uncomfortable slice of German history.

I wandered over to the Reichstag, and after being discouraged by long lines headed north to the Hamburger Museum. Once an old railway station, it hosted some interesting avant garde artists. After a quick bite of sushi with my friend Grant, a fresh NYer-turned-Berliner, I headed out to cocktails in the TV tower to kick off the Design Hotels conference which would take place over the course of the next two days.

Design Hotels Conference
The conference itself featured several really interesting designers, characters and talents. Among my favorites were Marije VogelZang, a food designer from the Netherlands with a wholly unique perspective on design and materials (check out her portfolio!) and of course Chris Sanderson and Martin Raymond from the Future Laboratory, they are fantastic performers (moreso than presenters!) and it's a always a pleasure to hear how they are absorbing and synthesizing trends.

I befriended a Chicago native, Steven Burke, who has done some really interesting work ranging from collaborations with exclusive retailers such as Missoni to collaborations with a struggling wire sculptor in South Africa which yielded a fantastic line of furniture. It was also a real pleasure to meet the boys behind Friends With You, and to understand the hilarious, and in many ways poignant, road that paved the way to their colorful figurines that are featured in every design shop worth its salt these days.

The conference ended with a gala dinner with a menu prepared by a top Finnish chef. A cuisine I'm not particularly familiar with, I really delighted in the bright range of flavors that were completed by berries, horseradishes, amazing ryes and incredibly fresh seafood. I also should mention that after 10+ years as a vegetarian, the first course was so intriguing that I could not possibly refuse it. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I can now say I've eaten reindeer heart sashimi. And it was...um...chewy.

Berlin Techno
I finished off the week in Berlin as any true clubber should, hitting the infamous techno dancefloors. As luck would have it, my NYC friends Camea Tim Tony and Grant were hosting a launch party for their label Clink at a fantastic venue called Arena. A bit off the beaten path, Arena is part of a larger complex of old warehouses now repurposed for events, art exhibitions, and general hipness. In the summer they have a floating pool on the river not unlike my all-time favorite NYC summer spot. Definitely something to return for!

After a few hours at Arena, I roped a couple of fellow conference attendees into hitting one more dancefloor and we made our way to Weekend. Famous for its rooftop (which was sadly no longer open as summer season had closed) Weekend is a full-on nightclub on the 15th floor of an otherwise entirely corporate office building. Berlin juxtaposition at its finest.

Thoroughly exhausted, I headed straight to the airport at 6am to catch a flight back to Madrid to meet my friend Chris who would be visiting for the week.