Photos by Simon Menges, Text by Jeanette Kunsmann
Photographer Simon Menges is a tried-and-tested Berliner: he was born in 1985 in Berlin-Reinickendorf, a district in the northern periphery of what was then West Berlin. At the age of 18 – shortly after the Fall of the Wall – he moved to his first shared apartment in Prenzlauer Berg, then to Friedrichshain, then further east still – to Shanghai. Before going to China, he’d finished studying architecture at the Technical University in Berlin but never actually worked as an architect. “You don’t have to become an architect because you’ve studied it”, he says. “I’ve always loved photography, even before my studies: my thesis was a photographic documentation of Gropiusstadt.”
In Shanghai he spent two years working mostly for David Chipperfield Architects, documenting one of the office’s biggest projects. Three pictures a day. “Strange as it sounds, to me China meant peace and a lot of time.” Since returning to Berlin he has been working as an assistant to German artist Wolfgang Tillmans as well as a freelance architecture photographer, with regular clients including David Chipperfield, EM2N, and Berlin-based Zanderroth Architects.
We met in August 2013 to talk about Berlin. But rather than just talking about the city as a photographer, he wanted to seek out a truly typical Berlin location to photograph as well. That’s how we ended up in the strange hinterland behind Berlin’s central station, currently one of the city’s largest construction sites, which during the summer has become a temporary fairground for the “German-American Volksfest”. While walking around this strange mixture of fun fair, construction site and city centre, we wondered whether in truth Berlin is perhaps just a cheap amusement park where the Easy Jet-set goes on a pub crawl …
»For me as a child, more than anything Berlin was grey! Much greyer than today!«
»People tend to come to Berlin without knowing exactly what they will do here. Either they find a job or work elsewhere while using the city as a home base. Berlin is the quintessence of freedom.«
»Many people who come to Berlin see only Kreuzberg or Neukölln and are excited to talk about it. But then again, many people don’t know much else about the city: for them, Berlin is like living on an island.«
»I don’t experience Berlin as a real metropole, but rather as a place that is in the process of becoming one.«
Simon Menges, born 1985, is one of the rare true Berliners in this city. He currently lives in Berlin–Kreuzberg. He works internationally as a freelance photographer. In addition to commissions for David Chipperfield, EM2N, and Zanderroth Architects, he pursues his own projects. Since 2011 he has worked as an assistant for Wolfgang Tillmans. This photo stretch of the Deutsch-Amerikanisches Volksfest was produced in August 2013 in Berlin.
»The path of least resistance is probably what lures many to Berlin. It is a city as comfortable and soft as butter. Life is super easy here, and remains affordable. To live here well takes relatively little effort, compared to other major cities.«
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