Walking Berlin: Looking Up at the Fernsehturm
During Module 2 of TheMuseumsLab 2026, walking was part of the programme itself. The city walks gave us a chance to step outside the formal sessions and encounter Berlin through its streets, architecture, public spaces and histories. And throughout those walks, I kept seeing the Fernsehturm. Rising above Berlin, the Berlin TV tower (as its other name) became a familiar presence as we moved through the city. From different streets and vantage points, it appeared in shifting relationships with the surrounding buildings, sometimes above the rooftops, sometimes framed between streets.
One of the walks organised as part of the TheMuseumsLab programme took us to a rooftop, offering another perspective over Berlin. From there, the Fernsehturm stood prominently within the cityscape, giving me a chance to see the tower and the surrounding city from above. But the walks also left room for my own curiosity. At one point, after the day’s programming had ended and the Fernsehturm was still on my mind, I took a train to find another vantage point. I wanted to see it from below, looking up, and discover how the perspective changed.
Standing there, with the tower rising above me, the moment felt unexpectedly enchanting. It was a small detour, but it felt very much like my way of experiencing a city. I have always enjoyed following what catches my eye; a building, a street, a detail, or a particular view can be reason to change direction.
The destination remains important, but sometimes the unexpected turn becomes the more memorable part of the journey. For me, the Fernsehturm became a kind of visual thread through Module 2. I kept encountering it from different positions, each view offering another way of reading Berlin. From the rooftop, it became part of a wider cityscape. From the streets, it appeared between buildings. Looking up from below, it became something much larger and more imposing. These different perspectives reminded me that cities are never experienced from a single viewpoint.
During TheMuseumsLab, we were thinking about architecture as sites of memory, cities as museums and heritage, and the ways cities tell their stories. The walks became another way of engaging with those ideas, not through a gallery or lecture, but by being physically present in the city.
Walking. Looking. Changing direction. And sometimes, simply looking up.
Walking Berlin
Jim Joel looks up at Berlin’s Fernsehturm from different vantage points during TheMuseumsLab 2026, from a rooftop city walk to an unexpected journey to see the tower from below. A small visual journey through walking, wandering and discovering Berlin.
This video brings together a few of those moments from Berlin during Module 2: the Fernsehturm appearing across the city, the view from the rooftop during our city walk, and my own small journey to find another perspective.
Walking, wandering, and discovering Berlin.
