architectonic

Berlin 2022

I like the way that everyone lives here. Bodies stacked up in streets. All lives organised into rows and blocks and apartments and rooms. Quadrants made entirely out of residents. There are balconies and allotments and the grass is so green. London’s grass is straw- it is yellow from drought and starved on a diet of Air Forces and picnic blankets.

People are just people. There are so many people. We just get on with things. And these little streets with their crisping leaves just say it all the same. And I can’t say a thing. I let myself fit silently; slot into the compounds, squeeze into train seats, stare out the windows, keep going forward. If you empty your gaze with enough conviction you can fool just about anyone. Headphones in and you look like you can get just about anywhere- as if shutting yourself off is a sign of familiarity. A solidarity. A drudgery. When you live in a place long enough, you know the sound that the train makes as it pulls away from the platform- you don’t need to hear it anymore. The trick is to have your headphones in but with nothing playing. Feel it all like a stranger but shed the skin of an outsider. No one expects you to wander the residential areas, so wander the residential areas. Look with the eyes of someone who has seen these buildings too many times before but will never see them again. Everything is seen only once, or otherwise with new eyes, new mind. Before you notice, all the architecture dips and slips and starts over.