The currywurst (curried sausage) is just as much a part of Berlin as Brandenburger Tor. Or at least that’s what they’ll tell you at ‘Deutsches Currywurst Museum’. No, it’s NOT a joke. Berlin actually  has a museum for the currywurst and in fact it’s not all that bad.

Before going I thought to myself, that it was impossible to make an interesting museum for a fastfood dish, and I expected my visit to the museum to be a quick one, but it turned out that the interactive museum had a lot more to offer than I expected. It was informative, creative and definitely worth a visit.

Currywurst mitt pommes - my favorite

Currywurst everywhere

The story of the curry wurst is the story of Berlin. Of how hausfraus had to be inventive during the war, when food was rationed, which led to the culinary creation of the currywurst. And on the story of the currywurst stands that are social institutions in Berlin. This is here you gossip, small talk or discuss big topic with the person eating a wurst next to you.  In Berlin alone there are hundreds and hundreds of curry wurst restaurants.

One of the many currywurst temples

Deutsches Currywurst Museum opened last year and is open everyday between 10:00 – 22:00. And when you’re done with your tour in the museum your ticket include a sample of the famous wurst. And if that doesn’t fill our belly you wont have to walk far before you stumble across the first place, where you can buy a currywurst.

Deutsches Currywurst Museum

Schützenstrasse 70

Berlin Mitte

www.currywurstmuseum.de

I had plans to go to the Historical Museum of Warsaw while visiting the city, but I was recommended to go to the Warsaw Uprising Museum instead. Several persons told me, that if I had to visit one museum during my stay in Warsaw, it had to be this one.

The museum is located a bit far from the city centre. About 20 minutes in a taxi, but there are trams, which can take you there as well. Ask for more details at your hotel.

When I arrived at the museum the line looked like this.

Line for the museum

I was queuing for around 45 minutes before I had my ticket in my hand and was ready to enter. The museum is packed with interactive displays, photographs, audio, video footage and a lot of other stuff and it’s all very impressive. The details of the Warsaw Uprising, and life in Warsaw during Nazi-rule, are informative and gripping.

When I’d finished the chronological story of the uprising, I entered a room, where people were queuing to get in and see the 3D-movie ‘City of Ruins’ and the line was even longer than the one I stood in to get into the museum, so I chose not to see the movie. A real shame, I know. The movie is supposed to be very, very good, but the line was simply too log and I had other parts of Warsaw I need to see before leaving.

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Clearly the Warsaw Uprising Museum is popular and for a very good reason, but it seems as if the museum is a victim of its own success. It’s almost impossible to really enjoy the museum as you’re constantly being pushed and shoved by the many (too many) people in the rooms.

The museum should definitely regulate better, how many visitors they let in. On the other hand, it was absolutely delightful to see that most of the visitors were Polish. And that the people now openly embrace this dark chapter of their history.

Admission: 10 Zloty (2,5 Euro), Children: 7 Zloty (children under 7 years fee)

Free admission on Sundays

Address:

Grzybowska 79

tel. (+48) 22 539 79 33

Open 08:00-18:00,

Tue Closed,

Thu 08:00-20:00,

Sat 10:00-18:00.

Most people don’t know that the New Museum was actually founded in 1977. With it’s 2007 SANAA-designed building on the Lower East Side, the sleek edifice disguises the gallery’s extensive history, the expanded aluminum mesh facade instantly standing out amongst its neighbours, loudly announcing itself on the Bowery strip.

With 8 floors and a total floor area of 58,700 square feet, I love the way the structure stands tall and proud on this part of the island, not necessarily renowned for its cloud-tickling buildings. The first thing you notice is the ‘Hell Yes’ sign outside the building. An artwork by Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone, the piece almost replaces the need for traditional signage, distinguishing and identifying the museum as much, if not more, as the smaller LED screen screen on the ground floor reading ‘New Art, New Ideas’.

As Manhattan’s only dedicated contemporary art museum, the venue delivers a litany of  quality exhibitions from both American and international artists. In fact, many renowned artists such as Jeff Koons, Louise Bourgeois and, my personal favourite, Claes Oldenburg actually had their early work exhibited at the New Museum.

I decided to check out the newly opened exhibition The Last Newspaper, a show investigating the ways in which artists interpret and respond to the images and stories we see in the daily news.

The first thing that caught my eye was the piece facing the front window…

I was told it was a re-staging of William Pope.L’s Eating the Wall Street Journal (2000), a performance piece in which a bevy of assistants spontaneously don the pictured Barack Obama masks and proceed to wander around the gallery, eating pieces of newspaper. Yummy.

Unfortunately, photographs are not allowed in the gallery, but the exhibit was thoroughly enjoyable, with many interactive pieces such as a collage wall (yay!) and The Temporary Newspaper, an actual newspaper created for the exhibit produced in full view of visitors with desks, laptops and actual staff setting up camp on the 3rd floor.

There was a $12 entrance fee, which I thought was a little steep. If you’re living on a budget, the ground floor lobby areas serve as an equal feast for the eyes, with a wonderful curved bookshop offering tomes on art and design and the 40-seat New Food cafe serving up treats like cookies and coffee.

Have you visited the New Museum before? What did you think? How do you feel about the location?

New Museum

235 Bowery, T: 212 219 1222

www.newmuseum.org

The Last Museum, October 6th 2010-January 9th 2011

Aalto’s buildings aren’t the only works of art in Rovaniemi. For a city of just 40,000, the capital of Lapland has its fair share of museums. Two of the most impressive, especially from an architectural perspective, are the Rovaniemi Art Museum (http://www.rovaniemi.fi/Kansainvalinen_sivusto/English/Culture/Museums/Rovaniemi_Art_Museum.iw3) and the Arktikum (http://www.arktikum.fi/).

The Art Museum is housed in a building that used to be part of the city’s bus depot. The ground floor was used as a garage and the upper level was a tyre warehouse, so back in the day, the now crisp, white interior, with its pale woods and red tile floor was considerably grungier – splattered in oil stains and other mechanical grime.

It’s one of only 12 of Rovaniemi’s buildings to survive the razing of the town in World War 2 and was originally smaller. Its post-war expansion was achieved using bricks salvaged from the town’s destruction, so in a way, it’s a collage of pre-war Rovianemi. Since 1986, the old depot been a very modern museum and thanks to an influx of EU funding, it’s in the process of being significantly enlarged.

Not too far away is Rovaniemi’s most impressive art space, the distinctly space age Arktikum (http://www.arktikum.fi/).

Part museum, part research centre, the Arktikum is an adjunct of the University of Lapland and was built in 1997 by Danish architects Birch-Bonderup & Thorup-Waade. The museum is in two parts, the crescent-shaped main building, which houses a lovely café, library, meeting rooms and the museum shop, gives onto a 172 metre long glass tube-like building, that runs under the main highway to Kittilä in the north and opens onto the River Ounsjoki. This is where the main exhibition spaces are located, two large and well-laid-out rooms dedicate to the peoples and cultures of the Arctic Circle.

The displays are really informative and cover the lives of the Innui, the Sami (who are native to Finland) and also of the settlers who began to arrive in numbers from the 16^th Century onwards. Displays are interactive and there’s even a special ‘ice chamber’ for children, where you can learn about how snowflakes are formed – the Innuit have dozens of words for snow – and learn about wind chill. Although in Rovaniemi in early October, learning about wind chill is as easy as setting foot outdoors – the temperature read 9C the whole time I was there but with a brisk wind blowing, it felt closer to -9C most of the time.

The Arktikum also hosts temporary exhibitions. My visit coincided with an interesting project by photographer Joonas Mikola, who set out earlier this year to re-shoot iconic images of Rovaniemi taken a century ago by one of Finland’s best known photographers, Likka Paavalniemi. The results, as you might imagine, were quite surprising – railway lines that had become motorways,

Two quality ways to spend a blustery Rovianemi day.