Berlin Unboxed: The visitBerlin Podcast
New perspectives on the city
With Berlin Unboxed we unpack Berlin history and stories for you. Each episode introduces you to a new topic, an exciting place or a great person from our city who is currently doing something special.
Listen in and be curious! In each episode of Berlin Unboxed you will find out what happens behind the doors that are usually closed to visitors. Our host Michael and various guest hosts from visitBerlin will take you with them! We talk to makers, thinkers and creatives. Berlin Unboxed takes you behind the scenes of Berlin's big and small attractions and takes you to places that are otherwise not easily accessible.
Episode 17: Berlin Unboxed - Olympia Special
Episode 16: Berlin Unboxed - It takes two to tango!
Episode 15: Berlin Unboxed - Animals in the city
Episode 14: Berlin Unboxed - Future & Futurium
Episode 13: Berlin Unboxed - Club culture & free space
Episode 12: Berlin Unboxed - Q BERLIN
Episode 11: Berlin Unboxed - It's Showtime
Episode 10: Berlin Unboxed - Timetravel by Bike
Episode 9: Berlin Unboxed - Industrial architecture
Episode 8: Berlin Unboxed - Changing exhibition culture
Episode 7: Berlin Unboxed - The Sound of Freedom
Episode 6: Berlin Unboxed - AONHA and how we can make the world a little better
Episode 5: Berlin Unboxed - Film City Berlin & Berlinale
Episode 4: Berlin Unboxed - Hohenzollerngruft
Episode 3: Berlin Unboxed - Classical Music in Berlin
Episode 2: Berlin Unboxed - Utopia Kulturforum
Epiosde 1: Berlin Unboxed - Dinosaur research at the Museum for Natural History in Berlin
Berlin Unboxed takes you behind the scenes
In the first episodes you will accompany us to the research laboratory of the Museum of Natural History, you will climb the tower of St. Matthew's Church with Pastor Hannes Langbein with a view of the utopia Kulturforum. In the Hohenzollern crypt in Berlin Cathedral, you will join us on a search for the lost queen. You will learn how Berlin became the techno capital and accompany music critic Frederik Hanssen into Berlin's classical music world.
Here you can find the visitBerlin Podcast
You can find our visitBerlin Podcast on Spotify, Deezer, on Apple and Google Podcasts. You can also listen to Berlin Unboxed in our ABOUT BERLIN app, the free digital city guide to Berlin history and stories.
On Soundcloud you can find an extra episode on the topic of Street Art Berlin
Download ABOUT BERLIN now for free for iPhone and Android:
There's many stories to tell. ABOUT BERLIN.
All Episodes of Berlin Unboxed (mostly in German language)
Episode 17: Berlin Unboxed - Olympia Special
Berlin and the Olympic Games, that's a very special topic. In this episode, however, we want to go less into the history of the Games and more into taking you on a tour of today's Olympic Stadium, a lively place where, in addition to major sporting events, the megastars also get the crowds cheering. Managing director and host of the stadium, Timo Rohwedder, opens all doors for us. Come with us to the fan curve, the Hertha team's changing room and the underground training track. Find out what happens behind the scenes and how the Olympic Stadium is preparing for the Special Olympics, which will be held in Germany for the first time ever in 2023. The two team spokespersons and Special Olympics athletes Claudio Göbel and Silvio Wünsche talk about their experiences in the sport and why everyone should really have a chance.
Berlin Unboxed: Olympia SpeCial
Episode 16: Berlin Unboxed - It takes two to tango!
Berlin is the second largest tango metropolis in the world after Buenos Aires. People dance here 365 days a year; in fact, there are even several milongas every day, i.e. dance events, workshops, courses, festivals and much more. People come to Berlin from all over the world to dance tango - one of the most exciting and passionate couple dances of all. Since 2009, tango has been on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural assets worthy of protection. Our two interview partners Kerstin and Jörg Buntenbach are also passionate about it - on the dance floor as well as behind the scenes. Feel invited, listen in and dance along: It takes two to tango!
Berlin Unboxed: Tango-Metropole Berlin
Episode 15: Berlin Unboxed - Does Berlin Need a New Heraldic Animal?
Berlin is one of the most popular travel destinations in Europe. But it is not only people who find the capital attractive, but also wild animals. Around 20,000 recorded animal and plant species make Berlin one of the most biodiverse metropolises in the world. Foxes and hares meet here, wild boars sometimes steal a laptop bag and hawks develop new hunting strategies for the backyard. We hear sparrows and nightingales, track beavers and learn about invasive species like the capital city lobster. Together with Berlin's wildlife officer Derk Ehlert, we take you on an expedition through the Tiergarten in this episode of Berlin Unboxed and marvel at how well the coexistence between humans and animals works.
Episode 14: Berlin Unboxed - Future & Futurium
How do we want to live? A question that people have asked themselves at all times. Whenever they formed a picture of the future. The realisation: the future does not shape itself or suddenly appear. Rather, each and every one of us is a doer of what is to come. In this episode, we introduce you to places of the future in Berlin and explore the Futurium Berlin together with Gabriele Zipf, head of the exhibition area, and Verena Bischoff, head of education at the Futurium, for possible models of the future. Because there is no such thing as "one" future. Just as there are no simple or quick solutions to the challenges we face today and in the future. But there are - and you can help shape them!
Berlin Unboxed: Future & Futurium
Episode 13: Berlin Unboxed - Free Space and Club Culture
Berlin's clubs are part of the city's identity. They are meeting points and intercultural meeting places, spaces for participation, for acceptance, tolerance, freedom and openness. How we can use the charisma of the clubs to create new spaces for new ideas is the topic of this episode of Berlin Unboxed. We asked Dimitri Hegemann, spatial researcher and founder of the legendary Tresor Club, to talk to us. Together with him, we look beyond the borders of Berlin and consider where exciting new free spaces could be created with new spatial concepts, even in the middle of the city.
Berlin Unboxed: Free Space & Club Culture
Episode 12: Berlin Unboxed - Q BERLIN 2022
The Metropolitan Conference for the immediate present
Almost everyone senses that something is changing on our planet and in our society. But the more we look into it, the clearer it becomes how complex the connections are and how challenging the search for solutions has become. In this episode of Berlin Unboxed, we report on this year’s edition of the conference Q BERLIN, titled „The New Unknown – Navigating Zeitenwende“. Profound shifts in global dynamics, an ongoing war in Europe, a pandemic spanning more than two years, a looming energy and economic crisis and increasing pressure to accelerate the green transition – all contribute to the state of crisis that defines the world we live in now. This is a historical turning point, and global metropolises - like Berlin - are at the heart of the issue.
Episode 11: Berlin Unboxed - It's Showtime
Glitter, sequins and stories: In this episode of Berlin Unboxed we take a look behind the scenes at the Theater des Westens. Here, where the musical Ku'Damm 56 is currently playing, stars like Marlene Dietrich, Hildegard Knef and Josephine Baker have performed. We visit the archives in the Theater des Westens, marvel at costumes and posters, climb high above the stage boards and drop by Friedrich Hollaender's Tingel-Tangel-Theater. Come along on a journey to the 1920s, hear the gossip of the theatre scene of yesteryear - and find out who Trude Hesterberg had perform on her Wilder Bühne. Stage technician and archivist Thimo Butzmann opens (almost) all doors for us with his large bunch of keys. He has been working here at the theatre for 30 years - and is also known internally as the Phantom.
Berlin Unboxed - It's Showtime
Episode 10: Berlin Unboxed - Timetravel by bike
Out into the countryside, along the Wall Cycle Path or exploring the city. Berlin not only has a well-developed network of cycle paths to get from A to B, from home to work, to the shops, to kindergarten and back again on a cargo bike... You can also discover and experience a whole lot here by bike. In no other city are there so many themed tours to exciting locations, to film and series filming sites, to architectural highlights and, if you like, even back into the past. For this episode of Berlin Unboxed we take you on a bike tour with Arne Krasting from Zeitreisen and visitBerlin bike expert and press officer Christian Tänzler.
Episode 9: Berlin Unboxed - Industrial architecture
The period of industrialisation with its new technologies and challenges has changed and shaped Berlin like no other city in Europe. It made Berlin a city of modernity - with innovative advances in transport, electricity, electrical engineering, architecture, culture and lifestyle. Much of this can still be felt and experienced today. In former factory halls, cold stores and transformer stations, in short, where work used to be done, we now find art, music, fashion, theatre - or individual living space, generous open spaces and spacious parks that are the envy of many people in the world. Come with us from Anhalter Bahnhof to the Museum of Technology, enjoy the view from the platform under the famous Raisin Bomber and discover with Joseph Hoppe, director of the Berlin Centre for Industrial Culture, where industrialisation has left its mark everywhere in Berlin and made room for something new.
Episode 8: Berlin Unboxed - The transformation of exhibition culture
Sculptures, urban art, street artists. There is something to see and experience on every corner in Berlin. At the same time, museums and exhibition halls are increasingly becoming immersive experience spaces. Dance events in the Neue Nationalgalerie, critical discussions on ethnological finds, performances and art exhibitions in clubs and abandoned building complexes. The exhibition culture in Berlin is changing.
What unusual art worlds you can discover here in Berlin is the subject of this episode of Berlin Unboxed. Our journey takes us from Dark Matter's expansive light installations in a former factory in Lichtenberg - to Schloßplatz in Berlin Mitte, to the Humboldt Forum. Here we talk to head conservator Toralf Gabsch about how the change in exhibition culture also affects the presentation of millennia-old works of art. Curator Clara Sauer and light artist Christopher Bauder give us insights into experimental forms of Berlin exhibition culture.
Episode 7: Berlin Unboxed - The Sound of Freedom with Mark Reeder
From the music scene and club culture of the 1980s in Berlin to punk rock in the GDR, which only existed because he smuggled the recorded music cassettes across the border, to current productions by the British musician and producer: In this episode, Mark Reeder is our guest, a Berliner by choice who has shaped the capital's music scene like no other. We talk to him about the legendary B-Movie, about music and club culture, about East and West Berlin, about the 80s and today - and of course about why Berlin's music scene stands for the sound of freedom like no other. Welcome to the seventh episode of Berlin Berlin Unboxed, the podcast by visitBerlin.
Berlin Unboxed: Sound of Freedom
Episode 6: Berlin Unboxed - AONHA and how we can make the world a little better
Open-hearted, lovable, for the most part open to new ideas and a good example of cosmopolitanism and diversity. This is how one could describe our city and the people of Berlin with a clear conscience. And yet living together is not always easy. Even the youngest of us are taught how to succeed in a very special place. At a place that interprets the story of Noah's Ark and also makes it possible to experience how living together can work in a multicultural city like Berlin. We are talking about ANOHA, the children's world of the Jewish Museum in Berlin. In this episode, we visit this place together with Dr. Ane Kleine-Engel, the director of the museum. Enjoy listening and welcome to a new episode of Berlin Unboxed, the podcast by visitBerlin.
Episode 5: Berlin Unboxed - Film City Berlin & Berlinale
George Clooney, Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet, Leo Di Caprio and Matt Damon. But also Andy Lau and Shah Rukh Khan. The stars of the film world also appreciate Berlin's fascination. It's clear that they come to Berlin not only to shoot, but also to attend the world's most important event in the film industry: the Berlinale. These days, the film world is looking to our city for the 72nd time, and thus to the largest public festival in the world. Fittingly, in this episode we talk to Benjamin Kohzer. He is the operator of Kinokompendium, Berlin's independent cinema guide and also a passionate moviegoer and Berlinale visitor. He shares with us his magical moments he associates with the Berlinale and gives us his recommendations on the best, most beautiful or even most intimate cinema addresses in Berlin. Have fun listening!
Berlin Unboxed: Film City Berlin & Berlinale
Episode 4: Berlin Unboxed - Hohenzollerngruft
To understand and experience history, you have to go where it actually happened. The Hohenzollern Crypt under Berlin Cathedral is such a dignified place and the most important dynastic burial ground in Germany. In this episode, we take you on a journey back in time - and on a quest to find Queen Elisabeth Christine, wife of Frederick the Great. What mysteries surround the queen? What do state funeral ceremonies of today have to do with the stately burials of the kings of yesteryear? And what awaits visitors to the new exhibition, which is scheduled to open in 2023? We talk about this with Birgit Walter, curator of the Hohenzollern Crypt exhibition.
Berlin Unboxed - Hohenzollern Crypt
Episode 3: Berlin Unboxed - City of Classical Music
Berlin is cosmopolitan and colourful, even as a city of classical music. Why? It's simple: Berlin makes classical music accessible to everyone. There is no dress code at the Philharmonie, tickets are cheaper than in many other cities and perhaps also because no one here pretends to be elitist, although the world's musical elite can be experienced on the concert stages. In this episode we meet Frederik Hanssen, who has been reporting on classical music for decades as an editor in the arts section of the Tagesspiegel. And Maja Avramovic, who has played in the Philharmonic's first violin section since 1994, takes us into the voice room, behind the scenes at the Philharmonie. Why don't you join with us?
Berlin Unboxed - City of Classical Music
Episode 2: Berlin Unboxed - Utopia Kulturforum
We visit Pastor Hannes Langbein at St. Matthew's Church (St. Matthäus-Kirche), the oldest building at the Kulturforum. Why the Kulturforum is also called the Museum Island of the West - and how it is to develop in the future? This are just a few points we will discuss in this episode. What has already been realised? What visions are there, what does the utopia Kulturforum mean for Berlin and what role plays the Church? Come along, listen to the premiere of a modern organ work and climb the church tower with us for a view with new perspectives on the city.
Berlin Unboxed - Utopia Kulturforum
Epiosde 1: Museum of Natural History in Berlin
We will visit the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin with you: by the way, not only one of the largest natural history museums in Germany, but also one of the five largest research museums in the world. Among other things, it is home to one of the world's most renowned dinosaur research stations. Dr Daniela Schwarz, palaeontologist and curator at the Natural History Museum, who has been intensively studying dinosaurs for twenty years, takes us behind the scenes into the museum's archive rooms and research laboratories.
Berlin Unboxed - Museum of Natural History
Episode 0: Street Art Berlin
From the East Side Gallery at the former Berlin Wall to the Teufelsberg: Discover the Street Art Mecca Berlin with us. Find out where you can find the most beautiful murals and how the street art scene has developed from its beginnings to the present day. Jan Sauerwald, director of the URBAN NATION Museum for Contemporary Art and curator gives insights into his work and Kimo, co-founder of the artist and street art collective "Dixons" takes us back to the time when it all began. Definitely our most colourful episode!
