Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Hundertwasser

HundertwasserMagdeburg

Many have an idea of the Germans as people so precise and obsessed with perfection that have no space in their brain for new and original projects.
These many should go to Magdeburg and would have a very different opinion.
I personally do not like Gaudi, I find it a little kitschy, but I was surprised and pleasantly surprised...
The real catchy is that you wouldn’t certainly expect anything of this kind in Germany.
This is a Paradise for children and adults that dream to be children again.
All those stairs and small gardens and hidden windows and colored columns.
It is something like the "One thousand and one nights".
It is like jumping in a fairy tale and be a part of it...

The white fence

Finally we have the sun today.
It was missing since long, so long nobody remembers a June like this, cold and rainy.
They say it is because the climate changes and pollution and so on.
I know why: because the Broghammers decided to live here.
Wherever they go, they bring rain and cold.
Mostly it is Mrs. Broghammer´s fault.
She is always cold and always complaining and that is exactly what happens.
Something like a Nemesis, today to you, tomorrow to somebody else and usually to the Broghammers...
Anyway, today was the right day to go on with the fence.
It proceeded also last week, in spite of the rain, in the few moments of sun,the Broghammers were ready with brushes and paint.
It looks great, at least that is what everybody around says.
Painting is also a way of socializing.
People who have little to do (which looks like to be the majority around) stop and chat.
Every day the Broghammers know a little piece more about the people who lived here before.
Every day a little piece of local history unfolds and many small details find an explanation.
For example the PKK written with a mosaic of tiles on the cellar’s floor is the name of the Polish who lived here in the early DDR times.
He kept the garden and the fence in a spotless way.
He loved to play the Harmonium in the garden and there were chairs and benches ready for whoever wanted to stop by and sing.
They also drank and laughed and enjoyed life.
Later he went away and the garden lost its glamour.
The fence began deteriorating, the color went away, the gate died a slow and painful death.
The Broghammers are welcome because the garden can begin to live again, the fence is a shining, glossy white and may be they hope somebody will begin to play and sing again.
That is something which won’t happen, but the neighbor’s are already happy to be able to find somebody to chat with.