Andreas Krüger is our partner and Urban Development Advisor. This is Andreas’s personal story about the project.
The better livable environments are able to bring people together, the better they are going to contribute to common needs and create an atmosphere of understanding and trustworthiness. A new quality of life will arise, both for living and working. With NION and its goals, a new human-centered approach in creative placemaking is about to emerge. This is why I’m participating in this really brave undertaking. Mostly in the fields of culture, arts and for creatives of any kind, but also for workshops, craftsmen, and small businesses.
My bridge towards some kind of an ‘ideal world‘ is clearly driven by human values, attitude, content and freedom. Few other – if ever – places in the world in current perception symbolize freedom and liberty as well as openness and accessability Berlin as it is now: A place for learning, making up your mind, becoming empowered, leading a sustainable live, finding and building all kinds of communities and falling in love. Beside these factors, I clearly see economic opportunities: There has never been a better time for content-driven entrepreneurship.
A burst of creativity
Having had some short insights into Berlin west of the cold war times during the mid 80’s, I finally found my way into town a few days after the fall of the wall in 1989. In those unstable times, no one knew how this “peaceful revolution” would turn out.
What happened was a burst of creativity with people longing for intensity and realness as if they had been close to drowning and there wouldn’t have been a tomorrow. This overall atmosphere was almost tangible in the beginning 90’s. Barely legal clubs, dancing halls, cinemas, bars, restaurants, hostels, hotels and so on gave way to a vibrant experience which was the counter culture to the former restrictive reality in east and west Berlin. It is di erent today but still quite a few “actors of urban change” remain and mingle with new urban entrepreneurs
for the sake of good living with a good outcome and heading for a quality driven city for everyone.
Craftmanship with devotion and passion
Since my training in cabinet-making, combined with boat building in Hamburg, allowed me to access the world of craftsmanship, I was curious what specific techniques could be learned. While checking out the “rougher” timber works, I got in touch with a master of furniture restoration. So skills like marquetry, shellack polish and super fine precision work with less than a tenth of a millimeter, done with an amazing grace and beauty came my way. This master was trained in Japan. It was my first and I guess everlasting access towards at least a notion of what human beings are able to build with their own hands, with devotion and passion which is beyond comparison. Since then I felt like being a “Japanese brother-in-mind”.
Why NION?
Two strong hands hold each other and others better than a single one. Japan and Berlin have much in common, are complementary to each other and are therefore able to create the contemporary “counter culture” of the 21st century. I love to be part of it. Let’s be the makers of the real innovative “global village” and the place for “new freedom”. My bridge is your bridge. You are welcome here.
