Berlin Experience

During the Berlin Design Week Ricardo Rodrigues was invited to give a lecture on my career, I said yes immediately; because I thought it would be an exciting Berlin experience.

The chosen place was the Embassy of Brazil in Berlin, a building with a modern architecture, but located in a historic area of the city by a canal where people are used to look for a spot in the sun during lunch time and this impressed me a lot.

How the sun, the warm weather, the city and its public spaces are used by everyone in the city.

As usual, the lecture brought me strong emotions, because when I talk about my career, I talk about my life and from where I come and where I am today, it moves me in a positive way and encourages me to continue the fight.

There are always surprises in these international lectures and one of them was the contact with a designer I already admired but did not know personally. I was able spend these days with him closely and had the pleasant surprise of realizing that he is not only a very good designer but also a wonderful  human being.

About the city of Berlin, what most caught my attention was the capacity for reconstruction after the Second World War, the city was completely destroyed and, in a few decades, a city of modern architecture, very up to date, arose again. Its main historic buildings were exquisitely restored, keeping the history of pain and suffering of these people.

The contrast of the new architecture with the old, fascinates me, and in Berlin I could see that in every corner.

People there live in a different pace, I observed this several times. I think I have been running a lot in my life, people in Berlin have a more peaceful life.

There is a massive use of bicycles and public transport, even if it is used madly (cyclists are very wild), a young population, with many children growing up in this environment with a lot of music, all kinds of art and culture.

It was a few days in Berlin, I didn’t get to know everything, a good number of historical monuments were left behind, but this is good because there is a desire to return soon to visit them.

Berlin was for me a dive in learning, in the way of looking at another culture, its architecture and customs and still spending time with great friends. Ricardo Rodrigues Berlin Experience