In the face of a new Mercedes Benz building on the Spree River in Berlin, how long can the beautiful reggae subculture at YAAM remain?

In Berlin, two buildings face each other on the Spree River: one is a shiny highrise, its mosaic of metallic colours gleaming on the roadside. It is the new Mercedes Benz building that will be constructed by Caimmo. Across the road from it sits a beach club, called YAAM, with a colourful graffiti-style sign and gates flung wide open. Inside, a festive assembly of shacks serving food and drinks encloses an umbrella-filled courtyard which opens onto a Spree-side beach.

Humble spaces like the YAAM club epitomise Berlin’s style and spirit. They put the spotlight on the city’s people: groups of students making nervous forays into the bar, throngs of hip travellers whose nonchalance suppressed the thrill of discovery; the Afro-Caribbean men who work in its stalls; the laid back scenesters who make their second home here, exuding an aura of purposeful calm that is years beyond their real age. By contrast, the Mercedes Benz building, and other new, shiny attractions which resemble it, are mute. Their strikingly modern and high-end designs may catch the eye but they can only hold it for a few seconds. They are no match for the ever shifting tapestry of humanity in YAAM and grassroots hangouts like it.

… They are slowly building another Berlin Wall around the Mitte, a Wall of impersonal modernity which closes its doors to the intimate, ramshackle, anything-goes local lifestyle. …

New highrises with their fortress-like fronts may provide photo opportunities but they lack a visible human presence. They are an artificial construct invented for visitors who are on a ‘Berlin-today, Prague-tomorrow’-style travel itinerary. Step into a venue like YAAM and its living, human theatre will close around you and turn the spotlight on you, expecting you to react and interact. Random, natural venues like these have no beginning or end, they don’t fit neatly into schedules and itineraries. They don’t offer guarantees or consistent standards but they do offer a chance to live and breathe the local culture and learn from it. Isn’t that what travel is supposed to be about?

… What will become of the city once they are all displaced by the sort of tourists who prefer to view things from an uninvolved distance?

Simply put, big, impersonal tours go against the Berlin and other cities’ spirit. They are no way for visitors to find out what the city is all about. Alternative Berlin and its partners within the Local Travel Movement offer a glimpse of what it’s like to actually be a local for a few hours, not just a glimpse of the locals themselves. We and our guides feel that tours should enable a real exchange between visitors and the city so that they leave the city with a memory of what Berlin really is, instead of the censored memories that various agencies have decided to sell them. We believe that that it is better to preserve the local authentic vibe by sharing it with visitors, than by enclosing it within a wall.

Read the complete article on the Alternative Berlin blog